Goddess Volume One Descention: Book 4: Fever
by Haley Mitchell
Summary: This story continues the Goddess Descention series. Part 6: Old Friends- The hunt is on for the killer loose in NYC and the young detective, Michael Sully realizes a past acquaintance maybe somehow mixed up in his homicide investigation of "The Carver". Rated T : Adult themes, parents cautioned.
1. Chapter 1

This story is based upon the world and characters created by the imaginative minds behind DC Comics, of which I claim no legal rights.

I also do not claim any legal rights to the poetry or song lyrics used to inspire each chapter.

The original characters in this work however were created by me and I do claim the rights to them. Any similarities in names or descriptions to people alive or dead is purely coincidental.

The references and descriptions of locales within cities and places that exist in the real world have been colored with my own imagination and should not be considered accurate.

All references to Gotham City however, are completely accurate... in my world.

* * *

_Goddess:_

_Volume 1 - Descention_

_Book 4 - Fever_

_Prologue - Inclusion_

* * *

**Serpentine**

_(Asylum)_

_**Damn what I'm becoming**_

_**One of them now**_

_**Just an opened door**_

_**On the endless night**_

_**Dark desire burning**_

_**In my blood now...**_

_D. Draiman & D Donegan _

_Disturbed_

* * *

_**Inclusion**_

_New York City_

Nervous sweat ran down his spine as Horace stepped off the elevator into a dark cavernous office. He was afraid but more than that, he was sick: His stomach rolled, his head pounded and his muscles ached and trembled. There was nothing he could do that could alleviate his misery; no over the counter drug, or anything in his own private stock would help; those drugs just didn't work on him anymore. His wasn't an illness that could be treated, it wasn't really an illness at all, it was more akin to withdrawal.

It was his transformation and it wasn't yet complete. He looked like them, his superiors, with his pale skin, white hair and pink eyes but he wasn't one of them, not yet. He still had to prove himself, he had to show them that he was worthy enough to receive the final gift. Only his employers, leaders… masters could help him now, he was at their mercy and he knew it.

When he first joined them it was a never-ending party. Mardi Gras in New Orleans was only the beginning. After his initiation the party moved to Miami with the drugs, and the money, and the women and all he had to do was recruit others. People like him, people that knew how things worked beneath the bling and the strobe lights in the nightclubs and the private parties where celebrities and the rich pretended to live on the edge; never knowing how close they actually were from a fall they could never climb up from.

Men like him were the ones the beautiful people went to for their designer drugs and party favors. Men like him were their only connections to the underworld, the go-betweens that lived namelessly in the grey zones between the big city lights and the darkness. That was what Nathan Stack had become when he took on the name of Horace. He was charismatic, he could mingle among them, move in their world and fit in. They trusted him because he was discrete and he was always there for them but he didn't really exist. No Horace in any of the cities existed, just as Nathan Stack ceased to exist back in New Orleans. He was now Horace York and he was a phantom.

He was also a foot soldier in a growing army. He didn't know their long term goals, not exactly, he just followed their orders. As a reward he lived among those beautiful people in their neon world and made himself invaluable to them and if he preformed his function well he also received his other reward, he was given another dose and was allowed to live.

Now he needed another treatment. The pain wracked his body and the tremors were growing worse. He didn't want to die like his contact in New Orleans, the man who recruited him, he didn't want to die at all. He had already failed them once because he had been weak. Someone had found out about him, someone had followed him here, New York.

He approached a long black marble desk near the windows. The blinds were drawn back to reveal the city lights but even those lights so far below were too bright for his over sensitive eyes. The chair behind the desk swiveled and a woman's sibilant voice spoke with an Asian accent, "Is it done?"

"Y-yes, it is done."

"I hope for your sake that is true. We do not tolerate mistakes Horace." She hit a button on an intercom panel built into the desk's marble surface then turned a computer monitor toward him so he could see the recording it showed: It was so bright in the dark room and after he blinked away the tears in his red-rimmed pink eyes he looked at the screen. A man that looked much like himself, long white hair, pale skin, red eyes was on his knees. He was surrounded by her black-clad guards, there was no sound but he could see the man begged for his life. He was sick too, Horace could see his hands tremble, just like his own.

She rose from the chair and his eyes followed her, it was so much easier to watch her than the screen. She was beautiful, exotic, almost otherworldly. She was taller than he was and when she stood he had to look up into her unnaturally pale, almost silver Asian eyes. Her silky white hair glowed beneath darker locks of blue-black. Her long thin body moved with an elegant grace inside the black tight-fitting suit she wore. She walked around the desk toward him, she moved fluidly, like she was made of water.

She made only the slightest gesture toward the monitor and when she spoke her voice sounded like silk, almost flirtatious "This one failed us in Gotham City Horace, he lied to us, deceived some of our young warriors into following him then he tried to run from us." Horace pulled his gaze from her back to the monitor and he could tell the man heard her words, he could see him shouting a silent denial. Horace realized this wasn't a recording, this was happening perhaps somewhere in this very building… One of the guards cuffed him across the back of his head so hard he fell to the floor, another grabbed him by his stringy hair and pulled him back up, his nose and mouth oozed blood.

Horace was startled to find that she was behind him now and he hadn't even noticed how she'd gotten there. He could feel her hands move up his back, over his shoulders then he felt her cool fingers wrap themselves around his hot feverish throat. He knew how strong they were, his superiors, he knew she could snap his neck if she chose to.

Other than his ragged breathing he didn't make a move and dared not speak. He heard her words behind him and they felt like silk against his ears. "Do not pity him Horace, he failed us, he failed you. He put everything we have worked for in jeopardy for his own gain… He used us Horace, he used the product to buy weapons. Weapons he had planned to use against us." Horace could see the man shake his head and to try to deny the charges against him.

"Do you remember your initiation Horace? Do you remember the dream?" Horace could only nod as he watched his Gotham City counter-part bleed and sob on the screen. "You are a part of something that will change the world Horace, could make that dream come true. You want your dreams to come true don't you Horace?" Again he nodded, his eyes were glued to the screen but his mind was lost to the memory of that terrible and wondrous night that changed him forever. He was an important part of something grand now, something that really could change the world and he could let nothing get in the way.

Her cool hands caressed his throat, "In his folly he has alerted one of the few that could thwart us Horace. He has set us back months, we have had to pull out of Gotham, for the time being." Horace focused again on the screen, on the man who put everything he had gained and risked everything they had worked for.

Suddenly her hands were gone from his neck and he missed their cool touch. She moved to stand before him again, "What should we do with this traitor Horace?"

He looked up into her strange eyes but was unable to speak. She backed away from him and he was dismayed, he wanted her to touch him again with her cool hands and he almost reached out to her, almost. Instead he looked back to the screen, to the pathetic traitor, the man who would ruin everything and for what? A feeble excuse for an attempted coup?

"What should we do with him Horace?"

He was angry now, he hated the man on the monitor, he was weak, he was useless. Horace looked up at her and resolutely said, "Kill him."

Elation soared within when she smiled at him, "You heard the man…"

On the monitor Horace could see the man's eyes grow wide and before he could mouth another word one of the black guards pulled a long curved sword from a sheath on his back. The sword moved like lightening and faster than his eyes could follow, the black guard had decapitated the white-haired man in one clean stroke. The Gotham City Horace was no more.

She was next to him again, blocking the grisly screen on the monitor with her body and brought a cool hand up to his face and he leaned into her touch. "You have performed admirably Horace, have no fear, you will receive your treatment and all will be well." She reached languidly back across the desk and turned the monitor away again. "You are dismissed Horace."

Regrettably Horace bowed awkwardly as he backed away, "Yes Mistress, thank-you."

Horace walked back toward the elevator but turned when she said, "Horace, you are absolutely certain she has been exposed?"

"Yes Mistress, she was there and wounded, I am certain of it."

"That is good Horace, that is very good." She turned from him, back toward the lights of the city.

Horace York stepped back into the elevator feeling much better than he did when he stepped out of it only minutes before. He smiled with relief, elation and longing. Horace's belief in what they did had been rekindled, what they could accomplish would spread like wild-fire across the country, the world. He would do anything for Niveus Noctis. He would do anything for her.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

_Goddess:_

_Volume 1 - Descention_

_Book 4 - Fever_

_Part 2 - Dreams and Dreamers_

_Plot link to Prequel - Goddess Awakening_

* * *

**The Dream **

_**Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,  
A boundary between the things misnamed  
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,  
And a wide realm of wild reality,  
And dreams in their development have breath,  
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;**_  
_ Lord Byron _

_(1788-1824)_

* * *

_**Dreams and Dreamers**_

Victor…

_He was running through a forest. A wild hunting creature, free of the burden of humanity. He howled his joy and the very trees shook with his exultation. The moon above lit up the night, it shined and he howled up at it and made it shiver at his ferocity, the moon feared him, She feared him, as she should. With every kill his power grew and soon even the Goddess would kneel before him with dread and he would take her, take her power and her life and he would be invincible. _

_He could smell the fear in the forest and he loped through the unseen clouds of the stench. It was everywhere, every living thing was terrified of him, it was glorious! Then the intoxicating scent changed into something else__…_

_It was foreign, artificial, wrong. His long sensitive nose burned with it. Wary, he slowed his progress as the trees around him transformed into steel and a loud clang reverberated in his bones__…__ he was caught, caged and he howled again, this time in rage._

_He looked down at his feet and the furry paws had been replaced with manacled human feet and hands. His lean animal body was encased in a sickly orange skin. Too bright lights flickered on and he was at the end of a long hallway. _

_Doors lined the hall, with steel-mesh windows. He could see the animals inside pacing, confused and disoriented, lost and hopeless, whining in their misery. He passed them all by, there was a darkness ahead at the end of the long hall, he would be safe there, in the darkness. _

_He was running again but not in freedom. He was running to it, trying desperately to find it again. Fearing at any time a barred steel door could come crashing down before him, enclosing him in another cell, incasing him in another coffin. He ran faster, as fast as his chained human feet could manage. _

_He ran past the bright lights and into the darkness but he stopped as something smooth barred his way. Seeing nothing in the dark he tried to feel a way past the obstruction, to find a way around it when a light slowly grew before him. _

_It was a reddish glow that emanated beyond the barrier that he discovered was a window. In the room behind the glass a lone figure lay in a hospital bed. The figure was a familiar stranger. He didn__'__t know this person, did he? Then the memories stirred into life. _

_He looked down at his arm and pulled back the orange sleeve to reveal the scratches, cuts he put there. All of them, they were his, the souls he liberated, the souls he ingested, all his, all but three. Those three shined in the red light, glowed with a radiance all their own. He had almost forgotten about them, he didn__'__t remember them because he didn__'__t put them there, it was someone else._

_Through the window he could see the sickly man, wasting away. His tall strong body had shrivelled, his sure hands were twisted claws, his rich brown hair was greyed and thin over a pink scalp. He lay there staring with his dark red-brown eyes. His slobbering lips mouthed something but he couldn__'__t hear the figure through the glass. Over and over again his lips and flicking tongue repeated the same words and he knew what the misshapen man said, oh yes he knew exactly what he said: _The girl, the girl, the girl… _The only words he__'__d ever said since they brought him to this place, this place of broken minds. He was blood, he was family, the only family he truly cared for, it was all he had left and it tore at his dark soul seeing him like this, again._

_Another figure emerged from the darkness in the room beyond the glass. He was young, almost a man grown but not quite. He was blond, beautiful, angelic. He slowly moved toward the hapless figure in the bed and took a twisted claw in his hand and held it for a moment. _

_On the other side of the glass he looked on, he knew what was going to happen next. The figure leaned over the man in the bed and gently kissed his forehead and when the young man spoke the words echoed in his memories__…__"__This isn__'__t life Uncle, this is hell and I will set you free. I will liberate you so you can shine again__…__ Good-bye, good-bye Uncle Luther.__"__ Then the young man took the pillow from behind his uncle__'__s head and covered his face with it. He didn__'__t struggle, the man in the bed, he gave over his life willingly, gladly, Victor knew he wanted this, Uncle Luther wanted his freedom._

_As a child it was only his uncle who knew what his young nephew really was, he knew what lived inside him because it lived inside him too. That shining darkness, that radiant shadow. It made them different, it made them better than everyone else, it made them predators. But he was robbed of the only person in the world who understood, the only person that could guide him through those difficult years. But his mind was broken, his life shattered and Victor remembered who it was that did that to his uncle and he remembered her eyes when she confessed her crime so long ago. The girl__…__ the one that got away._

_New York City_

Victor Zsasz woke with a start on a grubby mattress in a hole deep beneath New York City, _the New City, his city now_. The dream lingered in his memory and he concentrated on it, he didn't want to lose any of the details. He felt it was Fate trying to tell him something, something important. He remembered his uncle wasting away in Arkham years ago. He had dispatched him in his hospital bed late one night, he knew it was right, what his uncle would have wanted and he was glad to do it, he was the only one who could. It was his first real kill but many others would follow. He didn't make a mark on himself for his own Uncle, no, Luther had already made the mark on his nephew himself during one of his many fits. Victor remembered that claw-like hand that grabbed him, scratched him, marked him. His first marks.

But that was not what Fate was trying to tell him, there was something else. His uncle's condition, why he was made to suffer… it was her. He fumbled in the darkness of his hide-out for the flashlight he left beside the mattress he slept on. When he found it he turned it on and reached for the object he left on the table when he returned from his work early that morning. He picked it up, careful not to cut himself. He looked at the weapon he held in the light, a triangular shuriken spotted with her blood and his own. He remembered the cut it made on his arm when she tried to fight back, it dissected the three scratches his own uncle made with his own hand years before. He peered at the small shining weapon and he remembered her eyes when he called her by her true name. _Were they the same eyes, from all those years before? _Was Fate rewarding him by allowing him find the one that got away so long ago?

He stood and began to pace his small room, he was used to pacing in small rooms and thinking dark thoughts. She had known about the woman in the trees, she had known that he kept her here in this room. He shone the flashlight toward the empty cage in the alcove. How could she know that? How could a child break the mind of his uncle, a grown man, a predator? Was the child and that dark and shining woman one and the same? He wanted so much to believe it, to believe that Fate had rewarded him for continuing the mission he had abandoned so many years ago.

She must be a test, the final test before he could return to Gotham and face _him_. He stopped at the wall with the myriad of symbols he had put there. He reached up and gently traced the shape of the eight-pointed star; her symbol, _Inanna_. _Three more, only three and then you Inanna, then you will grace me with your presence and we will see how brightly you truly shine. _

* * *

Bruce…

_He was falling__…__ For too long he had been falling. He knew he would die when he finally hit bottom but that notion didn__'__t frighten him at all, it was almost comforting._

_Then a flutter of leathery wings enveloped him, slowed his fall, kept death at bay, forced him to live. He thought that he should be grateful but he wasn__'__t._

_He landed, gently, in the cave, his cave, his home. The bats swarmed around him, welcomed him. He used to fear them but not anymore, they were family now, a poor replacement for the family he lost but nothing could truly fill the holes their deaths left inside him. The bats tried though, around him they swirled and chittered and he watched as they coalesced into several forms, like the stalagmites of their home, his home._

_Then they were not bats anymore, not entirely. The tiny voices no longer chittered a welcome, their leathery wings no longer fluttered in the shadows around him, they now moved with a fluidity of motion: The natural grace of a human form. _

_They stepped forward, their faces masked but he knew them all. Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin__…__ and the Robin he had failed. They all stepped forward, ready to follow him into the endless battle he fought. There were more behind them, shadowy figures and he could not see their faces but he knew they would follow too. _

_He backed away, he didn__'__t want them to follow this time. He didn__'__t want them to waste their lives in a futile war that will never end. He wanted better for them, he wanted them to live their lives in peace, he wanted them to be happy, a happiness that was denied him._

_That didn__'__t matter to them, they followed him anyway. They all took a step forward and he could see where each of their paths led, he could see their fates. They blindly followed his lead and he could not prevent it, he could not stop them._

_He saw Barbara shot down; she lay broken and bleeding at his feet. He saw Jason__'__s mangled body in the wreckage of a demolished building. He saw Tim, the loss and the pain and the misery etched on his face as he slowly receded into the darkness of the cave. And he saw Dick, on his knees in agony, in the clutches of the affliction that raged through his body._

_There was nothing he could do, he was helpless as he watched their fates unfold. Why? Why were they made to suffer when he was left whole?_

_Then he heard a voice whisper behind him, __"__Are you?__"_

_He whirled around to face an empty blackness. The voice echoed around him, __"__Are You Whole?__"_

_He sank to his knees, the darkness before him lit up and he could see the alley and his family. His heart wrenched inside him as he saw himself, a child, trying desperately to revive his fallen parents. He saw the blood pulse through his tiny fingers as he tried to stop the flow from their wounds and he saw the pools of blood form under them in spite of his pitiful efforts. He looked down at the blood on his hands, __"__No, I will never be whole again.__"_

_A ruddy glow emanated from the walls of the cave as blood flowed down them, filled his cave, his home. It pooled around him and rose higher and higher as it filled the cavern._

_He knew whose blood it was, as it threatened to drown him, he knew: All the victims, all the people killed in this war. Innocents. Cut down by his enemies, the enemies he could not, would not destroy. All the blood, all the lives ended because he could not do what was necessary__…__ All his fault. He was sinking in it, drowning and he didn__'__t fight back, he was tired of fighting. He lay back and let the blood cover him__…_

_Then a child__'__s voice whispered__…__"__You have to keep trying!__"_

_It was familiar, heard long ago, but it didn__'__t matter now. He had tried, and he failed, he could not stop the war, he could not stop the blood from flowing._

_The child__'__s voice whispered again__…__"__Promise me you won__'__t give up!__"_

_He had made promises before, promises he could no longer keep, impossible to keep. He sank deeper, only his hand remained above the surface of the lake of blood that filled the cave, his home, then it too began so sink as he gave in to his desolation, finally defeated by the war he could never win, he surrendered._

_Then a small hand reached into the blood and grasped his. It__'__s tiny fingers were warm and strong as the small hand clenched his and pulled him out. Out of the blood, out of the darkness of the cave where he had lived for so long and into the light._

_He was on his knees, in a forest, there was a small wound in his hand and it was bleeding. He looked up but it was too bright, he could not see the figure that pulled him out of his despair, it shined with the radiance of the sun__…__"__Who are you?__"_

_All he received in response was an echoing whisper in his mind that said__…__"__You have a purpose__…"_

_He looked down, at his hands, in one there was a scar in the center of his palm, small, white, from a long time ago, the first scar in the first battle of this futile war he endlessly fought. _

_Then the ground began to shudder and break apart. He was sinking, his legs, now below the surface of the ground felt nothing, an empty place was beneath him. He struggled and clawed at the dirt and dead leaves around him but they sank with him. Just before he submerged completely he heard that echoing whisper once more__…__"__Make your own way__…"__ Then he was falling again, falling, and he knew he would die when he finally hit bottom but that notion didn__'__t frighten him__…_

_Gotham City_

When Bruce opened his eyes that sensation of falling was still with him. Through the cobwebs of his sleep fogged mind he tried to remember the details of the dream or was it a nightmare? He supposed it was a matter of degree. He'd had far worse but that one was disturbing; a swirling mix of fears, despair and memory.

He felt slightly disoriented but recovered quickly as he sat up in the chair, he was still in the cave. Several monitors before him showed the computers were all still busily working on their appointed tasks but his mind still lingered on the dream. He looked down at his hands, in the center of the right palm was a small white scar and wondered why his dream would remind him of that day in the forest near the graveyard, then he remembered what day it was.

He had almost forgotten. How, after all these years could he have forgotten this day? He rose from the chair, made sure the computers would continue their tasks without supervision, then went to the elevator that would take him out of the darkness of his home and into a surreal lighted world.

Bruce Wayne walked across the vast expanse of land his manor claimed. The sun, still low on the horizon, promised a warm summer day. He squinted in the brightness and quickly donned sunglasses; warm summer days had long ago lost their allure, he was nocturnal now.

He continued on toward the greenhouse past the fountains and the gazebos; the area of his land he used for outdoor events, on those very few occasions when he, for appearances sake, had to allow people into his home and entertain them. Inside the conservatory he found Kiya. The elderly Japanese lady was one of the few permanent staff members that worked within the manor grounds besides Alfred. She was quiet and kept to herself. Her only love it seemed was for the growing things that surrounded her. She had made the greenhouse a sanctuary of sorts and Bruce found her Japanese influence on the place calming.

Kiya had a very traditional up-bringing and when he entered she bowed low, averting her eyes until he acknowledged her, which he did immediately. She greeted him in Japanese, she understood English but she never spoke it. Bruce had no trouble understanding her. She called him Wayne-san and brought him two freshly picked red roses and reverently bowed again, she never forgot this day or it's relevance. He thanked her and bowed low, equally reverent. Then he left her to her work and continued his yearly pilgrimage.

When he reached the iron gate in the fence that encompassed his estate he opened a panel near the ornate opening and pressed his thumb on the pad that allowed him to pass through this little-used exit. The fence itself was a gothic-style wrought iron barrier with decorative spear-like finials. It was impressive looking but it could hardly keep trespassers away alone, that was what the sensors were for. The entire perimeter of his estate was enclosed within the fence and it was wired with sensors that would instantly alert his security system of intruders. Camera's would pop up from the ground to record any attempted incursion, and depending on who the intruders were, other functions would initiate such as alarms, lights, a low level electrical current and even a tranquilizing gas if the trespassers proved to be more threatening than just the curious, the pranksters or the paparazzi. Bruce Wayne had many secrets and he had the wealth and the resources to keep them.

Roses in hand he passed through the gate and walked along an old dirt road that encircled the graveyard, his destination. There was a Wayne family crypt deep within the cemetery but his parents were not there. High on a hill at the edge of the old graveyard he had a monument built. He was still a boy when he insisted it be done in time for his parents funeral and Bruce thought perhaps he had just wanted to keep his parents close. He couldn't remember the reasons why he needed it built there but they must have been sound because Alfred made the arrangements and it was done in time. He remembered one night, shortly after the funeral, he had awoken from a nightmare and went to his parents empty bedroom. He remembered dragging a heavy chair to the window and standing on it so he could see the monument on the lonely hill in the graveyard in the moonlight.

It was still early and not a soul was around except the birds that sang in the trees nearby. At the base of the hill he paused and looked up at the monument. It was a tall white marble memorial with two simple but elegant spires that reached up toward the azure sky. He couldn't remember the sky being so blue before. He couldn't say why but he had always pictured the sky grey and overcast in his mind when he thought of this place. He climbed the hill, his annual pilgrimage almost complete.

The monument was in good condition. The cemetery staff were paid well to keep it that way. There were no chips in the stone, no dirt or garbage, the grass was green and the flowers that were planted at the monument's base flourished. It was a beautiful memorial to the people buried there and if he wasn't still so close to the pain he could see it in that light, in the sunlight.

Bruce knelt on one knee, and laid the roses under their names carved into the white marble. He was about to make the same vow he made every year but the well worn words stuck in his throat. He had finally realized the vow he had made to his parents was impossible to keep. He could never rid Gotham of the evil that took their lives. He had tried for years and still he had failed. There was more evil and chaos here than ever and again he wondered if it was himself that drew it here.

He again thought of the dream. Drowning in the blood of all the innocent people of this city, he thought of Jason, dead at the hands of the Joker and the others, what terrible fate awaits them? When he began this journey as the Batman he had no intention of gaining followers or protégés but like the scourge of evil in this city they flocked to him. Joined him in the never-ending war he waged. Never an end. It was time for a new vow, since he had failed to keep the old one. He whispered to the graves of his parents…

"_I have failed you and I am sorry. I can__'__t stop the evil that took you from me, I can__'__t stop the innocent blood from flowing. It is too late for me, I am too far gone as Batman to stop now but I can stop others from following me into this war. No more children will die fighting at my side. That is my promise._

He stood again, his annual ritual complete. He prepared to return to the mansion, the cave and continue his work but the dream continued to haunt his thoughts…

'You have a purpose.' the voice had said. A child's voice. He turned his hand to see the scar again and remembered…

He was fourteen, and he had come to the monument, there was a funeral below, two people were buried that day. He was returning home when he found a little girl lost in the woods, or was it he that was lost? She was tiny, maybe five or six but there was something about her, something different. She was frightened, something was chasing her. She disappeared into the forest but he found her again. Another boy, he was maybe twelve, he was threatening her. He fought him, that was when he received the scar. It was a long needle, the boy stabbed his hand with it but Bruce had prevailed and the other boy ran away.

Then he remembered the girl, she took his injured hand and he felt something, like a presence that grieved his parents with him somehow, as if he wasn't alone but he couldn't explain it. She had said strange things to him about a purpose, and that he had to find a way. He didn't understand then and still didn't. Then he remembered a helicopter and men that came and took her away. He remembered she told him her name, _'__Anna, my name is Anna.__' _What was it about her that was so important and why has her voice been haunting him lately?

After the events in the forest that day he had tried to find her but he didn't have the skills he had now. He could find no traces of her, it was as if she didn't exist. The only reason why he believed she wasn't a figment of his own imagination was the scar in his hand. Finding her now would be impossible and he had too many other things more vital than trying to track her down again. Yet, in spite of that he found himself walking toward the gravesite at the bottom of the hill, where the funeral was that day. If that was the funeral she attended maybe the names of the dead would lead to who she was.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

_Goddess:_

_Volume 1 - Descention_

_Book 4 - Fever_

_Part 2 - Blood_

* * *

**Voices**

_(The Sickness)_

_**I can hear the voice But I don't want to listen  
Strap me down and tell me I'll be alright  
I can feel the subliminal need To be one with the voice  
And make everything alright**_

_D. Draiman & D Donegan _

_Disturbed_

* * *

_**Blood**_

_Gotham City_

Blood, he had to wash off the blood. The fountain would do. He stepped in and laid down in the cold water and let it wash everything away. It felt good. The cold was so very good. He wished he could stay there forever… But he couldn't do that, he had work to do.

He had to make the _arrangements_ for him. Yes, _He_ would like that, then maybe _He_ would let him be for awhile. He had to find her again. He had to save her…

_You wouldn__'__t need to find her again if you had patience little one. _

But he wasn't ready for her then…

_You should have waited__…_

But the moon was full, it was time.

_Are sure about that little one?_

"Yes it was, wasn't it?" Full and bright in the park. He remembered what he'd been told. _'__The first ones when the moon is full then wait a few days, only a few. Then again and again and again until the blood flows through the streets of Gotham!__'_

Besides, he had to do it. Those boys, so worthless, so full of themselves and yet they were nothing, nothing! Useless, wasting their lives… When he found her and saw them, he just had to do it. He'd waited so long, so very long. Excruciatingly long; in hell every minute was an eternity.

He stood in the small pool as the fountain rained water down on him then stepped out. He shuffled his steps, obscuring his footprints like _He _told him to. _He_ was so harsh sometimes. The last ones, he had made mistakes. _He _was so angry.

_You were sloppy, you hurried, you let your fear control you._

"It will be better this time, you'll see…"

_It better be, can__'__t afford mistakes little one. You__'__re playing in the big leagues now. _

He walked back to the kid. He had been skating in the park with his friends. He had watched them for hours… it was what _he_ did.

_Patience is a virtue little one. _

Finally one by one or two by two they left him, until he was all that remained. He stayed to practice. Sliding his board down the low metal railing next to the stairs that led to the fountain. He stayed behind so he could fail alone without the others watching and laughing. Halfway down the low handrail his board would slide off and he would be all flailing arms and legs struggling to keep from hitting the pavement. He was awkward, this man-boy, but not any more. Soon he will be frozen in time.

He told himself these boys didn't matter…

_They all matter little one. _

Only She really mattered. If he could get it right this time. If he could make her understand. "It could all be different…"

_It will change nothing, they__'__ll still be dead, they are all dead and they are all better for it!_

"SHUT UP!" He held his head between his hands and covered his ears and blinked tears and chlorinated water from his eyes.

_You have work to do little one, better get to it. _

He made the arrangements for the man-boy, carefully this time, he forced himself not to hurry.

When he was finished he disappeared into the night, on a new mission, on his own mission. He had to find her again.

_Does she shine little one?_

"Yes, yes she does."

* * *

**The Reaper And The Flowers**

_**There is a Reaper whose name is Death,  
And, with his sickle keen,  
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,  
And the flowers that grow between. **_

_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  
(1807-1882)_

* * *

_New York City_

Detective Michael Sully arrived on the site just after dawn and his partner Detective Theo Ranoli was already there being briefed by an ashen-faced uniformed officer, likely the first on-scene. It was unusual that Ranoli beat him to a crime scene at any time, especially so early. Ranoli wasn't a morning person, he was a short hairy Italian that was gruff in voice and in manner and he was more than a little dumpy-looking - he was Sully's polar opposite. Michael Sully was a tall, blond and blue-eyed, clean-cut Irish boy and new to homicide and as far as Ranoli was concerned that made him a liability. Ranoli didn't like his young new partner and Sully couldn't really blame him for his resentment.

Sully had fast-tracked up the ranks in vice and that was mostly due to the help of an unauthorized informant. Those were Sully's words, to Ranoli that informant was a masked vigilante at best and at worst; nothing more than a common thief. Sully had to admit there some truth to it, all those busts he got almost single-handed a few years ago did seize more drugs than money. He knew his unauthorized help was probably skimming cash before he got there to make the arrest but together they caught some dangerous people and if that cost the city a few bucks then so what. As far as Sully was concerned, without his informant's help the city wouldn't have seen that money anyway, never-mind the pushers and the mountains of drugs they got off the street. It was a fair trade that Sully called hazard pay and she deserved it considering the risks she took. But all that changed two years ago, when his informant disappeared with no word, no trace, no nothing.

Sully's unauthorized vice partner was an open secret within his unit, tolerated only because they got results but even still, he took a lot of heat over it. After she disappeared he had to work twice as hard to regain the trust of his colleagues. Fortunately all the cases he had worked with her gained him a considerable amount of information about the New York City underworld, and Sully was smart enough to use that information wisely. Eventually he overcame the stigma of having worked with a mask and had proven himself an efficient and valuable member of the force. Only two months ago he had finally made it to homicide but every silver lining had a cloud and Sully's cloud was Ranoli.

Detective Theo Ranoli hated masks. It was his view that if they wanted to protect and serve they needed to throw away the mask, earn a badge and do it legally. The world in Ranoli's eyes was black and white and in homicide that was mostly true, but after a few years in vice the one thing you learned was that there were all kinds of shades of grey in between that couldn't be ignored. Sometimes you had to let the little fish go if you wanted to catch the big ones and sometimes you had to take whatever help you could get, even from a mask, but that was a lesson Ranoli refused to learn.

Sully strode across the grassy clearing adjacent to the Dyker Beach Golf Course toward his partner as the sick-looking uniform hurried to his cruiser. "What do we have?"

Ranoli scowled down at his notes and turned toward the trees. "Female vic, Caucasian, no ID. Anonymous tip called it in two hours ago, just before dawn. She's deep in them trees, took them awhile to find her, forensics is having a look now. According to the first on-scene it's pretty horrific. Think you can handle it grasshopper?"

Sully ignored the jibe as they both stepped into the thick brush between the trees and a few short but arduous steps later they broke through into a small clearing. As soon as he saw the body Sully took an involuntary step back into the dense brush he had just pushed through and gasped, "Jesus!"

A CSU investigator was standing beside the body taking digital photos of the victim's face as the two detectives emerged into the clearing, she looked up from her work and frowned, "Pretty awful huh?" But awful wasn't a strong enough word to describe it, Sully couldn't think of any word that could convey the brutality of the scene before him: The woman was naked, her feet were tied with a rough hemp rope, her wrists too but they were staked out, stretching her arms over her head. The entirety of her body was carved with intricate symbols, there was so much blood it was hard to tell which wound or wounds caused her death. Even her face had shapes etched into the forehead and cheeks, and her eyes; they were wide open and Sully could see the terror still in them.

Ranoli circled the body and approached the CSU investigator, "What can you tell us Doc?"

'Doc', a slight, bottle blond in her early fifties stood up and moved a few steps to take pictures of the victim's bound hands as she spoke. "She's newly dead, I'd say TOD was five to six hours ago max, but I'll know for sure back at the lab."

Sully regained some of his composure and took a step closer, "What do those symbols mean?"

Doc looked up at him, "I have no idea, but we'll be able to see them better once she's cleaned up, and hopefully we'll be able to get an ID. All I can say right now is she's about 35 to 45 years old, no evidence of sexual assault but again I'll know for sure back at the lab. There are three possibilities for the COD, I'll have to get back to you on that, but a couple things I do know for sure…" Doc pointed to cuts made on the body's torso, "See these lesions here, here and here?" As the two detectives crouched down to get a better look she continued, "The blood started to clot, and some of the more shallow cuts had already stopped bleeding; he took his time with her, either here or at another location. And there's one other thing, see these marks on her wrists?" Both detectives leaned in to see what the CSI had indicated. "See the rope burns? They are consistent with the scene, but over them, closer to her hands, these other marks are different, not rope and there are the same type of marks around her ankles."

Sully moved forward and crouched down again to get a better look, "So that means…"

Still holding the ropes back with a pen Doc looked up at him and finished his sentence, "The rope was a new addition to her torture, added only last night, these other marks are a different kind of restraint, possibly handcuffs or some type of plastic binding and some of the layers of the marks they made were already starting to heal… My guess is, he's had her for days."

Ranoli straightened up and all three ignored the sound of his knees popping in protest, "Why change to rope here when he had another, probably better restraint in place?"

Doc shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine Theo.

Sully was still studying the marks and thinking out loud, quietly muttered, "Could be something to do with this ritual or maybe the other restraints could be traced back to him somehow."

Doc stood up, "I'll make a note of it and see what I can find."

Sully stood too and stepped back to survey the area around the body, "We'll check missing persons, see if we get a hit once we get a cleaner picture of her face."

Ranoli turned to him, "No, leave that to Doc and her staff, you're going to check and see if any vics like this have showed up in the last year or two, anywhere in the country."

Sully looked quickly at his partner, "You think this is a serial?"

Ranoli began to push his way back through the thick foliage but paused and turned, "You don't? Look around shamrock, this seem like a mugging gone wrong to you?"

As Ranoli disappeared into the brush Sully, trying his best to ignore his partner's attitude, turned back to the CSU investigator, "You find anything around the body Doc?"

She stood up with a sigh, "No, not really anything promising yet. There's lots of blood spatter and pooling, all most likely the vic's, but so far no hair, no fibers and no real prints. Whoever did this, he knows how to cover his tracks. Theo is right, he's a pro. I have my team on the way, we'll comb the area; if there's anything here we'll find it." Nodding solemnly Sully turned toward the thick brush and his thoughts were grim. He couldn't ever remember anyone finding a body quite like this one in recent memory… _If he was a pro than this wasn__'__t his first victim, and if it wasn__'__t, where were the others? _

He left her to finish her work but he turned back when she called out, "Hey, Sully. Don't sweat Ranoli, I've known him a long time and he doesn't like anyone." Sully smiled as he struggled back through the trees.

When Sully emerged on the outside of the wooded area he could see the CSU van with Doc's team making it's way down an access road toward the ravine and behind it an ambulance followed but as it was driving past he noticed a flutter of activity up the hill near the street. His partner was already trudging up the slope and Sully hurried after him.

By the time Sully reached the small cluster of uniforms that surrounded his partner, Ranoli had already hunkered down to inspect what they'd found. The uniforms made a hole to let him through as Det. Sully approached, "Find something?"

Ranoli had an open evidence bag and was collecting what looked like paint chips off a scraped up part of a guardrail along the road, "Might not be related to our crime scene, could have happened before or even after the murder."

Sully inspected the scraped metal, there was no wear or weathering, it happened recently, but there were also no tire tracks on the smooth asphalt, whatever hit the rail didn't seem to brake at all. "Could be our anonymous tip, or a potential witness…" _or another victim._

One of the uniforms piped up, "Doesn't look like a big impact, I mean the guardrail isn't really bent up bad, mostly it's just scraped. Maybe a smaller vehicle?"

Another uniform chimed in, "Ya! Could be an Austen Mini, or maybe one of them smart cars."

Ranoli stood up, disgusted, "A smart car? That the best you can do?" Then Ranoli spotted something behind the officers that disgusted him even more, "Cripes! Already the vultures are circling." Grumbling Ranoli pushed past the uniforms and began yelling at the new focus of his disgust; a news van had pulled up and even before it stopped moving it's side door opened and a man holding a camera jumped out. The uniforms all turned to watch the show that was Ranoli in action and even Sully was smiling but he soon tuned them all out as he spotted something down the slope.

It was hardly noticeable, Sully was just lucky enough to be standing at the proper angle to see it, a flattened patch of grass at the bottom of the hill. Sully hopped the rail and made a wide circle around, not wanting to trample potential evidence, and took a closer look. As he approached he saw other tell-tale marks on the ground, broken weed stems, rocks with the top layer of dirt scraped off or smaller ones dislodged altogether. His mind churned with possibilities; _could be someone was thrown from a vehicle after the impact with the guardrail, but to have thrown a person from a car or a truck the impact would have damaged the rail much more than it did, unless__…__ it wasn__'__t a car at all._ As he reached the spot he had seen from above he realized his conclusion might be close to the mark because within the indentation of flattened grass Sully found… a small pool of blood.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

_Goddess _

_Volume One: Descention_

_Book Four: Fever_

_Part Three: Fever Dreams_

* * *

**The Dream **

_by Lord Byron (1788-1824)_

_**Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?  
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make  
Substances, and people planets of its own  
With beings brighter than have been, and give  
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.**_

* * *

_**Fever Dreams**_

_New York City_

Shay remembered little from the night before. It was a haze of images from the present and the past and it got to a point where she couldn't distinguish them. At the scene of her accident she remembered Nick helping her into his truck but she had been fading in and out of consciousness. Recent memories were a haze of shadow and fire, water and guns and a man in a mask, so much had happened in so short a time. Then she remembered a chillingly evil mind and death. Not her own, not yet, but she felt death brush her cheek and he left a smear of blood…

"Shay! Shay stay with me! Talk to me!" That was Nick's anxious voice, he was driving, all over the road, fumbling with a cell phone.

She wheezed and weakly coughed, her voice barely a whisper, _"__Nick, slow down, don__'__t want to get pulled over__…"_

He became calmer, "Just stay with me okay, just hold on, we're almost there, just hold on…"

* * *

_Hold on, her gymnastics instructor said but her tiny hands could barely wrap themselves around the bar. She said she was too little for that yet but she wanted to try the parallel bars, she wanted to master them too. The other girls were watching, she could feel their expectations, they wanted her to fail, they wanted her to fall__…__ but she didn__'__t fall, she didn__'__t fail, not that day__…_

* * *

She felt hands on her, carrying her into a building. She muttered, _"__No hospitals.__"_

She heard Nick's voice again close to her ear, he was carrying her, "We're at Jeannie's Shay, do you remember Jeannie?" She did. Nick's sister. A nurse, retired, not in a hospital. _"__Yes.. I remember.__" _Kind, sweet Jeannie with an iron core. Shay trusted Jeannie, she reminded her of someone…

* * *

_She ran into her mother__'__s arms. She was happy, she had learned to block out the noise in her mind but she could still feel her own mother. She was always there, that comforting presence, the love. She could almost see her face__…_

* * *

A woman's face hovered above her, it was Jeannie. She looked old, long grey-blond hair dishevelled, like she had just woken up, and she was worried. "This is going to hurt Shay." Then there was pain and Shay cried out…

* * *

_Screams echoed in her mind. She was too young to comprehend the pain and terror. She could feel them die, she could feel everything they were, all at once and she could feel the monster that took their lives and it was cruel and brutal__…_

* * *

Voices, she heard voices and felt pain again. It was Jeannie's voice; that iron core was showing, "…there _is_ no anesthetic, this isn't a hospital! Hold her down Nick!"

"I'm trying."

"Mar, Felicia, help him!"

She felt many hands now, the emotions around her screamed anxiety and she heard Nick's strained voice close to her ear, "Don't fight us Shay, we're trying to help, just hold on."

* * *

_She did, she held on and would not let go of his mind as she shattered it. She used the power of death itself and broke his twisted mind. He would never kill again, and she would never be the same__…_

* * *

"… close to the lung, I'm not sure. She's awake again. Hold her down!"

There is a bright light over her and the pain is too much, the light is too bright…

* * *

_Sunlight, it is warm on her face but she feels a chill. The coldness of a grave. There is hate here, and anger and chaos. She runs away from it, into a forest. It is cooler there but not as cold as the emotions she ran from. She still feels the chill, she shivers__…_

* * *

Her armor is off, she is on a cold table a sheet covers her. Nick's voice, from far away, "… was an accident."

Jeannie's examines her. "The gunshot wound is no accident."

"I don't know anything about that, she didn't tell me…"

* * *

_She had to tell him, the boy in the forest. He was tall, older than her, she felt safe with him. He was important but she couldn__'__t remember why. He protected her from the monster that will be__…__._

* * *

Her eye is pulled open, she sees a light and Jeannie's face behind it, "… mild concussion. God Nick, she's a mess, scrapes, cuts, bruises," Jeannie picked up a bloody hand, "… puncture wound in her hand…"

* * *

_She held his bloody hand in hers, she felt the needle puncture the palm of it, she felt the pain with him, but his pain went far deeper than the barb that impaled his hand, so much deeper__…_

* * *

Jeannie's voice is close, she pressed down on a tender spot and Shay winced in her half conscious state, "… cracked ribs, maybe broken, I can't be sure without an X-ray."

Shay feebly grabs Jeannie's arm, _"__No, no hospital Jeannie, better to let me die.__"_

Jeannie leans in, "Shay, you are not going to die, but I can't help you if…."

* * *

_He can__'__t help, he can__'__t save her this time__…__ the dark men have come for her, she is only a child, she doesn__'__t know how to fight them, yet. With their black suits they came to take her to the pale doctors and their experiments and tests and drugs. She will cease to exist behind their white walls again. She will disappear from the world she had only just learned to live in. _

* * *

She was being carried again, she heard Jeannie's voice somewhere behind her, "Try not to jostle her Nick, I don't want her to start bleeding again."

With Shay in his arms Nick trudged up the stairs. Ahead is a different woman's voice, it was Mar, Shay remembered Mar. "I don't know why she has to stay here Jeannie, it's not just you and me anymore…"

"She's not out of danger yet Mar, she needs to be watched…"

* * *

_They watch her all the time. With their cameras and their one-way glass, as if she can__'__t sense them hiding there. She hates them, they keep her mother away. They shaved her head, wired her to machines and IV tubes. They test her talent, they test her ability when confronted with death, over and over again__…__ she wonders where these dying people are coming from, are those pale doctors killing them? Killing people just to test her ability?_

* * *

She is in a room now, it is familiar. She's too tired to keep her eyes open but she can hear them talking. Nick gently laid her battered body in a bed and reached for a blanket to cover her, but Jeannie stayed his hand. "No, just the sheet Nick, her temperature is at 101.7."

Nick sounded worried, "A fever?"

Jeannie sounded puzzled, "Yes, it could be pneumonia but that shouldn't develop so soon, and her lungs sounded clear."

"Pneumonia, how?"

"The bullet was too close to her lung, if there's fluid…"

"You said it didn't puncture her lung…"

"I'm not a surgeon Nick and my kitchen table is not an operating room, I don't know for sure. Bullets do a lot of harm, it isn't just the hole they make, there's also concussion damage to the tissue around it. Her lung is bruised at the very least and that is enough to cause pneumonia."

"I'm sorry Jeannie, I'm just worried."

* * *

_Her mother was worried, she could feel it in spite of the drugs they gave her. She was eight. She was wrapped in a blanket and was being carried by her father, there were others with her parents, they were running through the white-walled halls. There was fighting and a man that carried a brilliant light. He was fighting the dark men. There were others with him but she can__'__t remember them. She wishes she could, they were taking her out of that place of death with white walls and dark men._

_Finally they are free of that terrible place, free to start over again. It was dawn when they said their good-byes and thanks to the people who helped them. But she can__'__t remember them, all she does remember is a flash of light and golden eyes watching her__…_

* * *

"… we'll just have to watch her and wait. Mar, Felicia, I want you both out of this room until I know why her temperature is rising."

* * *

_She watches her mother sleep, her chest rises and falls, she is peaceful and content, it is a good feeling. Tentatively she puts a hand on her mothers expanded stomach and tries to sense the growing child inside. She could feel him! She could feel him stir and under her hand she feels the baby move. She wants one of her own someday and when her mother wakes she says so. Then her mother__'__s mood changes from contentment to apprehension. She doesn__'__t believe that will happen or if it does, that it shouldn__'__t. She is confused, she asks her mother why it isn__'__t alright for her, then her mother tells her the truth. The horrible truth. _

* * *

Shay's eyes flutter open. Jeannie and Nick look down at her and Jeannie says, "Shay, do you remember coming into contact with anything? Someone sick? A gas, anything you may have ate or drank?" Shay didn't hear her, her eyes were focused on the child peeking in the open door. Jeannie followed her gaze and when she saw the girl she called out, "Felicia! Keep Lily out of here!"

Felicia and Lily, Shay remembered them, Jeannie's grandchildren.

* * *

_She remembers a child, a sweet little boy but mischievous. He thinks she is sleeping, he is sneaking up behind her, trying to surprise her. It is something he has never been able to do but that doesn__'__t stop him from trying. Just as he is about to pounce she turns on him, picks him up and tickles him until he is breathless from giggling. He is her little brother and she loves him more than anything. His thoughts are clear, innocent without any deception and he idolizes his big sister. She would do anything for him, she would die for him._

* * *

Something cold and wet on her forehead, she shivers and tries to bat it away. "Stop that Shay." It is Jeannie with a wet cloth in her hand.

Shay whispers, _"__It__'__s too cold.__"_

"No it isn't Shay, you are too warm. Do you remember where you are?"

"_Your house, Stef__'__s room.__"_

Jeannie is pleased and smiles. "Yes Shay, yes it is. Is there anything else you can remember?"

It was hard to stay awake and harder to remember events of that night, they seemed to have happened ages ago. Ironically things from her childhood were coming back to her with crystal clarity.

"_I remember dancing__…"_

* * *

_There was a crystal chandelier in the center of an auditorium. Then it dimmed until it disappeared in the darkness. She was on stage, a spotlight erupted around her and the music started. She danced. She felt free, her ability was focused on the other dancers and their practiced movements. The audience was there too, in her mind but they were far away and didn__'__t interfere. It was the only time she felt her ability actually helped her, she could concentrate and focus on the dance. She was elated, she felt as if she were flying across the stage._

* * *

Shay tried to get up, _"__Flying, have to fly__…__.__"_

Nick gently pushed her back down, mindful of the wound that was still oozing, "What are you saying Shay?"

"She's delirious, her temperature is almost at 103." Jeannie moved in to take her brother's place. "We have to get her fever down. Nick I need you to go and get ice, and plenty of it, fill the back of your truck."

They both looked at Shay when she muttered, _"__No, not trucks, they were cars__…"_

* * *

_There were cars in the parking-lot of the auditorium. Her family was surrounded by their bright headlights. Men grabbed her when she opened the back stage-door. Her family was terrified, her little brother cowered in the backseat of their car, her mother was in her mind, telling her to fight them and to run to the car. _

_The men who had her were dragging her toward their black sedans but she wasn__'__t a seven year old little girl anymore, she was sixteen now and she would not be taken so easily. She twisted away and broke free of one of them and kicked him further away but the other had a syringe__…__ than a shot rang out and the syringe and most of the man__'__s hand was gone. He screamed and she gasped with the instant pain and his blood when it sprayed her but she was free of him. _

_She ran toward her family. The other one was running after her and she saw others moving in from all the dark sedans around them. Her father had the gun and fired another shot at the one behind his daughter. He knew he dared not kill him, he knew what would happen to the her so he aimed for the man__'__s leg, it didn__'__t stop him but it slowed him down. Anna made it to the car and they drove off smashing into the vehicles that tried to block them in. _

_They drove away. Her mother stared out the back windshield at the cars that pursued them. __"__How did they find us again!?__"_

_She could see her dad__'__s worried eyes in the rear-view mirror. __"__I don__'__t know, Julia, I don__'__t know.__"__ In the backseat Anna held her little brother close and he sobbed against her, he had never been so frightened. She rocked him and crooned a wordless melody like she used to do when he was a baby and that seemed to calm him._

* * *

She opened her eyes and saw her mothers worried face, then her mother spoke with Jeannie's voice, "Shay, do you know where you are?"

"_In the car. Where_ _is Rhys? I have to find him!__"_

She tried to rise but was pushed back down. She became angry but when she looked up she recognized Jeannie's confused face. "Shay who is Rhys?"

Hearing someone else say his name aloud broke her heart and tears threatened. Shay couldn't understand why her memories were coming back to her so clearly, like she was reliving them, reliving the worst day of her life…

* * *

_They raced through the city streets. __"__Everyone knows what to do if we get separated right?__"_

_Anna__'__s mother spoke, her accent only emerged when she was upset, __"__We won__'__t be separated Ian, we will stay together!__"_

"_Julia, listen to me, our only chance, Anna__'__s only chance maybe to split up. Anna, you remember the safe-house? How to get there?__"__ Anna couldn__'__t reply. She couldn__'__t imagine being without her family, being chased, hunted, alone. __"__Anna! Do you remember?!__"_

"_Y-yes, I-I think so.__"_

"_Good, once I lose them we__'__ll drop you and Rhys off and you two will make your way to the safe-house and we__'__ll meet you there. Can you do that Anna?__"__ She held her little brother closer__…_

* * *

"_Yes, I can do that.__"_

Jeannie could see that Shay was lost to her delusions again and she was visibly upset. Her delirium seemed to be getting worse and Jeannie still couldn't understand why this fever had started so suddenly. A mild temperature rise after the ordeal Shay had just been through was normal but this, this was wrong. Jeannie checked Shay's temperature had risen to 104, she was dangerously close to a real medical emergency. Something was terribly wrong.

* * *

_Her mother was horrified, __"__Ian, we can__'__t just leave them in the middle of the city__…"_

"_They__'__ll follow _us_ Julia, we can keep them away from the kids, there__'__s too many of them, soon they__'__ll create a perimeter and box us in, it__'__s our only chance.__"_

_Her father used every trick he knew to shake their pursuers and finally it seemed they lost them as they approached the bridge. __"__Julia, under your seat there__'__s a case, pull it out, the combination is 162519, open it.__"__ When she opened the case her mother looked sharply at her husband, __"__What__…"_

"_Julia, don__'__t argue, we__'__re running out of time. Just make sure the safety is still on then attach the silencer to the barrel. Then give it to Anna.__"_

_She knew her mother hated guns and Anna could feel her revulsion but it quickly turned to resolve, she would give her children every weapon available to protect themselves, she had done that all their lives. Lessons, training, it all had a purpose: Survival. Julia gave her daughter the gun._

_Anna__'__s father looked at her through the rear-view mirror, __"__Remember Anna, aim for their legs and once they__'__re down you run, you don__'__t shoot to kill, understand?__"_

_Little Rhys looked up in amazement but Anna was just as repulsed as her mother had been a moment ago. __"__Yes Daddy, I understand.__"__ They were going to leave. She knew it was to draw their pursuers away but still, they were going to leave her and her brother alone, this was really happening__…_

* * *

Nick burst through the door. In his arms, piled high, were several bags of ice. Jeannie jumped up and grabbed two and laid them next to Shay, one on each side of her. "Take the rest Nick and fill the bathtub."

"You sure Jeannie, I mean, she's shivering already…"

"Shivering is the way the body creates more heat Nick, it's not a good sign. Her temperature is still rising."

* * *

_They were crossing the bridge to the other side of the city. Downtown, with it__'__s tall buildings and a labyrinth of streets to get lost within. Halfway across the bridge she could sense them, their pursuers. __"__Dad, they__'__re here__…"_

_He looked in the rearview mirror but the street was empty, __"__Where Anna, I don__'__t__…"_

"_Above us!__"_

_Then he heard it, the distinctive sound of a helicopter. Before them headlights approached. Anna__'__s father accelerated, then shots rang out, many of them, from automatic weapons. Ian had his wife take the wheel as he fired at the chopper through the car__'__s window and the cars, no, they were vans, before them got closer. Anna could sense them, the ones approaching from the other side of the bridge, and they weren__'__t the same people, but they wanted the same thing; her._

_The helicopter kept pace with the family__'__s car and the dark men continued to fire at them. The children in the backseat huddled together and stayed low amid the harrowing gunfire that riddled the side of the car with bullet holes. Finally they succeeded in blowing out the car__'__s front tire. Anna__'__s mother struggled for control of the vehicle and her husband abandoned the fire-fight to help her. Their car swerved and fishtailed. _

* * *

Nick returned to the room where Shay lay shivering and whimpering with the memories the fever induced delirium brought back. "Jeannie, you always said a fever wasn't really a bad thing, it helped the body to fight infection…"

"Normally that's true, but there are limits Nick. If her temperature continues to rise she risks brain damage. Help me get her into the bathtub, we have to hurry."

* * *

_The car spun and the gunfire continued. Then the unthinkable happened. A shot penetrated the rear windshield of their car and Anna, her mother and her young brother all screamed in unison as it hit her father in the back of the head, killing him instantly. _

* * *

Shay screamed then and Nick, who had just picked her up to bring her to the ice-filled bathtub lost his hold and dropped her back onto the bed. Immediately Shay began to convulse as she relived the terrible memory of her father's death.

* * *

_The car spun and skidded, it__'__s driver slumped over the bloody steering wheel. Little Rhys was crying hysterically and Anna was caught up in the instant and horrific death of the man she knew as her father. The death of a stranger was a terrible thing, but of someone she knew, someone she loved, it was so much worse because she could feel the emotions and memories she herself created within her father__'__s mind and it tore at her heart that the love he felt would now be forever denied her. _

_Sobbing uncontrollably but recognizing the danger that still threatened Julia was the first to recover from the shock of her husbands death. She reached for the steering wheel, but too late, the car careened off the side of the bridge and into the river below._

* * *

"What's happening!?" Nick shouted as he fought to pick up Shays convulsing body. Suddenly the convulsions stilled and Shay's body stiffened.

"Seizure!" Jeannie grabbed Shay's legs, "Nick, pick her up, get her to the tub, NOW!"

* * *

_The car fell nose first into the cold water of the river then it__'__s rear end fell to the water__'__s surface with a huge splash. Inside what was left of the family was still trying to recover from the shock of losing one of their own. He was the foundation of the family, he was their anchor, he kept them safe with his training, his contacts, his courage and his love, even for the daughter that wasn__'__t truly his own. _

_When they hit the water Julia was thrown against the front windshield and that left her dazed and bleeding from the impact, her son behind her was unconscious and he bled from the a cut near his temple but he still breathed. Her daughter lay immobile in the back seat next to him. She was lost to whatever it was that takes her when death occurs. Julia shuddered to think what Ian__'__s death was doing to her, but she couldn__'__t dwell on it, her children needed her._

* * *

Nick and Jeannie carried Shay's stiffened and feverish body down the hallway to the bathroom, "My God Jeannie, she feels like a furnace!"

Then they all but dropped her into the tub of ice-water. "I know, but short of calling an ambulance and getting her to a hospital, this is all I can think to do."

Once in the cold water Shay's body began to relax; the seizure subsided.

* * *

_Anna slowly began to rouse as the car moved with the current of the river, under the bridge then out the other side. She could not see well, her father__'__s death and the trauma it caused her had weakened her and blurred her vision, but she could tell what was going on through the link she had with her mother._

_Through the window Julia could see the helicopter still hovered but as it tried to follow them she saw it tilt and careen out of control. Then inexplicably, it crashed into the bridge. By the light of the burning wreckage Julia saw several dark vans drive away. She marked their headlights as they drove toward an access road that followed the river. She knew who they were, it was Him and his insane followers, her and her children were not out of danger yet._

_Travelling backward with the current, the car began to sink. The engine being heavier sank first and the car tilted nose down. The motor was off, the power windows would not open and the window next to Ian was not open enough for any of them to get through and the water__'__s pressure against the doors made them impossible to open. _

_Julia crawled into the backseat with her children. She quickly checked on them, Anna was awake now but Rhys was still unconscious. Water began to fill the front of the car, making it heavier, causing the vehicle to sink faster. They didn__'__t have much time. _

_Anna__'__s mother braced herself against the back of the driver__'__s seat. The downward tilt of the car had caused her husband__'__s body to slump forward against the steering wheel, his face was already covered in water. The bullet that caused his death also made a hole in the back windshield and she kicked at it desperately, trying to make an opening big enough for her children to get through. She had to hurry, once the water covered the back window it would be impossible to break it open._

_Anna undid her brother__'__s seatbelt and kept his head above water while her mother worked at the window. Behind her mother her father__'__s body floated in the rising water in the front of the car. Anna turned when she heard an audible crack and felt acute pain when her mother cut her leg on the glass she just broke through. The hole in the window wasn__'__t wide enough for them to crawl through but Julia made it bigger, cutting her hands ragged as she pulled and fought with the broken glass. The water began to slosh around the window as Anna__'__s mother worked at it._

_Anna had to hold her brother over the water__'__s surface now, they had less than a foot of air inside the car and water was pouring into the opening Julia was trying to make bigger. __"__Anna, you will have cover your brother__'__s nose and mouth when the water gets too high.__"_

"_Okay, Mom.__"_

"_Almost there baby, we__'__re almost there.__"__ Anna could only nod in reply and shivered in the cold water._

* * *

Shay stopped shivering and Jeannie checked her temperature again, "105.5, I think it's holding there." She put a hand against Shay's cheek, she was still very warm to the touch and Jeannie could only pray the fever was finally breaking.

* * *

_They were all under the water now. Anna had her hand over her brother__'__s nose and mouth so he would not breath in the deadly water, but he struggled with her. Her mother had finally made a large enough hole in the window for them to escape the sinking car. Anna__'__s mother took the struggling boy from her daughter and gestured that she should get out first and the girl moved toward the break in the window, she climbed through scraping her arms against the jagged glass. Outside the car the current was strong and Anna had to hold on to the sharp edges of the opening to stay with it as her mother lifted the boy up through the hole. _

_Just then the car hit bottom with a great jarring shudder. Anna__'__s hands were ravaged as she desperately tried to keep hold of the window but the current was too strong and it pulled her away. Anna__'__s mother and little brother were knocked backward as the car rolled on it__'__s nose and finally rested upside-down on the river__'__s floor, trapping them inside. _

_Anna broke the surface and tried frantically to swim against the current, back to her family. She could not see where the car sank, there was no trace of it on the surface. She dove under trying to see the car in the dark water but she couldn__'__t find it. But she could feel them, her mother and brother. She could feel their panic as their lungs burned with the absence of life-giving air and Anna could feel their pain when they finally succumbed to the agony of drowning. As her mind became immersed in their deaths the uncaring current carried her farther away and into the blackest night she had ever known._

* * *

Shay lay in the icy water and cried uncontrollably. Her fever had broken but like so many years before, so had her heart. Jeannie held her as she relived the desolation she felt when she was left alone, adrift in a harsh and uncaring world. She had lost everything.

* * *

Unknown to Shay and Jeannie, the mysterious enzymes that Shay had been infected with earlier that night had imbedded themselves within her cells. But they were unable to completely bind to the unique DNA of this host and with the onslaught of the fever that raged, one by one, they died.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Goddess Volume 1: Descention**_

_**Book 4: Fever**_

_**Part 4: Truth**_

* * *

**No More be Grieved at that which Thou hast Done**

_William Shakespeare (1564-1616)_

_**Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud.**_

_**Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,**_

_**And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.**_

* * *

_Gotham City_

_**Gotham City Gazette**_

**SERIAL KILLER PLAGUES GOTHAM CITY, AGAIN!**

**Victor Zsasz is once again loose in Gotham and has claimed three lives in his latest killing spree. **

The morning issue of the Gotham Gazette was angrily waved into the face of Police Commissioner James Gordon by the current Mayor of Gotham City, Vincent Arnoli. When he got the call that morning summoning him to the Mayor's office Gordon knew he was in for a tirade. Mayor Arnoli was a short, pudgy man with a bad comb-over and stank of too much cologne. His round face was like a mood ring and changed color with his disposition, right now it was red as an angry beet. He had waddled over to Gordon waving the offending paper in front of him like a flag and shouted, "Have you read this?!"

Gordon almost said no, just to see what color his face would turn next, but at the last minute he thought better of it, "Yes Sir, I have."

The Mayor backed away from Gordon, he didn't like having to look up at him, and began pacing and barking questions. "What are you doing to find this maniac?! How did the press find out so many details? Who is leaking them information?"

"Sir, we are doing everything humanly possible to apprehend Zsasz, we have several leads we are following and I'm not aware of any leaks in the department, the information in the paper could have been gleaned from witnesses. There was nothing in the article that has been deemed classified." It was true, there were no leaks that Gordon knew of in this case. Zsasz's MO was common knowledge in Gotham, so was his identity and his description. Unfortunately it was so well known that they were getting dozens of people a day claiming to have seen him and Gordon had to send men to each and every sighting. He had to follow every lead no matter how insubstantial. He would leave no stone unturned but it was spreading his manpower thin.

"The press is screaming for a statement from the both of us and I want to be able to tell them something, anything! So what are these leads you have?"

"Sir, with all due respect, I'm not going to threaten the investigation by disclosing evidence or information to you or the media at this time."

The mood-face turned a darker shade of red, he was really livid now. "What do you mean threaten the investigation by telling me! I'm your superior! I appointed you and I can bust you back down to street patrol!"

"You most certainly can Sir and that's your prerogative, but I won't take the chance of disclosing evidence to anyone, even you, if it means risking the investigation." Jim Gordon wasn't worried about his job. Arnoli was all bluster with no backbone, at least not concerning the Commissioner of Police in Gotham City: Gordon knew where all the bodies were buried, so to speak. Gordon also knew the illustrious mayor of Gotham was only two generations away from close affiliations with the Italian mob. His family did indeed work hard to legitimize and separate themselves from organized crime but he and Arnoli both knew there were certain people, certain members of _the families _who still believed in the bond they shared with the Arnoli's of Gotham. Gordon had a hunch that deep down Mayor Arnoli was a decent man just trying to get past his family history and do some good but Gordon knew that someday possibly soon, the mob, thinking they could have a sympathizing Mayor in their pocket, would make their move on him. Gordon had no idea which way Arnoli would turn, all he could do was watch and wait.

"I'm not just anyone Gordon, I'm the goddamn Mayor of this city! I got the Governor on the phone asking me what we're doing about this, this Zsasz character and I had nothing to tell him! Nothing!"

"If you like Sir, I'll call the Governor and update him on the case…"

"You're damned right you will, and since you intend to keep me in the dark, you'll also be fielding all the questions at the press conference I'll be calling this afternoon!"

"If you wish Sir." _Why not_, Gordon thought, he had nothing else to do today…

* * *

After his morning meeting with the Mayor, Gordon hurried back to his office. The morning rush-hour traffic was still raging downtown and as his car inched it way through the streets of Gotham the Commissioner thought about the statement he had to make to the press. He could begin by telling them he wasn't so sure it was Victor Zsasz that killed those three kids. He could almost hear the uproar that would cause and the questions: If it wasn't Zsasz than who was it? Good question.

None of the killings fit the profile of any of the Arkham escapees except Zsasz. Crane was still missing and if it was the Scarecrow he would let everyone know who it was, he thrived on the attention. Of the other missing escapees there was an inmate with a delusional disorder who was also a former henchman of Crane's, a kid diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a brutal and sadistic Asian mob enforcer with antisocial personality disorder. None of them really fit the profile of these killings. Until last night Gordon was convinced the murderer was Victor Zsasz, then he had another meeting, a midnight meeting.

The Batman didn't believe it was Zsasz, he said there were too many inconsistencies. Gordon wasn't completely convinced but the Batman made a compelling argument. To begin with there was the sloppiness of the first crime-scene. Gordon had to agree, it wasn't like Zsasz to be so… messy. Victor Zsasz was obsessive in his attention to detail. The only times he wasn't was when he'd been interrupted or on the run. At the apartment the evidence showed he had plenty of time to arrange things. But the boy that was found at the park was entirely different. It was a public area for one thing, which for someone like Zsasz who didn't like to be rushed, was risky. The boy was found sitting under a tree, his skateboard balanced on his knees and he appeared to be concentrating on a phone he held in his hand. People walked past him for hours until someone that knew him tried to talk to him. Except for the outdoor setting that murder seemed more Zsasz's style.

Then there was the survivor of the first murders, in the apartment; he let the girl live. She wasn't home when he struck but the evidence showed he'd been in that park watching them, possibly for days yet she was allowed to leave and her roommates were attacked while she wasn't there. Zsasz had never before allowed a potential victim to live if he could help it.

Then there was the victim profile. All were young men sixteen to twenty years old, one near a park frequented by kids on skateboards, the other two playing a video game in their own home, all doing what teenagers do best; nothing. What was really odd about the victim profile was that there was one at all; Zsasz had never had a victim profile before. He never chose victims in any particular way, in his eyes everyone was already a victim. Of course the similarities between the victims could just be coincidence. Could be or it could be that it really was a victim profile for another killer and that Batman was right, it's a copy-cat.

The Commissioner heard his phone buzzing, pulled it out of his pocket and read the text. His office assistant had just informed him that the FBI were waiting for him in his office. Jim Gordon had been wondering when they'd show up.

* * *

_Gotham City_

With the help of a pair of crutches, Dick Grayson hobbled and limped out of the elevator and into the Batcave. He could hear someone working at the computer banks and when he saw that it was Alfred he was relieved and a little ashamed for it. Bruce was his mentor, his friend, one of the few people in the world who knew the tragedy he had faced as a youngster and understood why he did what he did now. But so much had changed since he left Gotham City. Somehow Bruce had changed, there was a darkness that hovered over him, more so lately than usual and Dick felt that he just didn't know him anymore.

When Alfred saw him he quickly rose from his seat, "Master Richard, you should not be out of bed so soon."

"You know me Alfred, can't keep me caged long, besides, I'm supposed to be helping." Alfred rolled another chair over for him and Dick sat with relief, the crutches were awkward and uncomfortable and the wounds in his legs still throbbed. "So what are we doing?"

Alfred returned to his own work station after the young man was settled and resumed the data flow on his monitor. "I am running simulations based upon your last blood-work trying to find a way to reverse your… infection."

Dick flushed slightly, it was embarrassing to have been infected with the very thing he was trying to hunt down. He didn't think it was really his fault but he was sure Bruce didn't see it that way. "I see. Any luck?"

Without taking his eyes off the screen Alfred answered cautiously, "Unfortunately no, but chin up young Sir, there are many things we have not tried as of yet."

Outwardly Dick nodded approvingly, but inwardly he sighed, he knew Alfred very well and if he was trying this hard to be optimistic Dick knew his prognosis wasn't overly promising. Still, he may never come into contact with this mysterious catalyst; he certainly wouldn't down here in the cave, and since he was stuck here he might as well make himself useful: Dick still had a case to work on and fired up his own work station and monitor.

The first thing he wanted to do was find out NYPD's take on his night out in the Big Apple. Dick hacked into the New York City police files. It was actually relatively easy; Bruce already had the programs in place that could penetrate most of the law enforcement networks on the continent and a few across the globe including those of the FBI, DEA, Scotland Yard and Europol. The more covert and international organizations such as the CIA, MI6, CSIS, SVR, Mossad and Interpol among many others both political and military were more difficult but not impossible to crack but they required a more hands-on approach that was beyond Dick's capabilities so far, but he was learning. For now all Dick needed was the report filed concerning a raid at an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn.

He found a preliminary report easy enough and began reading intently. It seemed the police found no contraband in the warehouse or on the felons they arrested on charges including multiple illegal firearm violations, property damage, breaking and entering and parole violations. As he read the report Dick was surprised to find no reference to Niveus Noctis. He was sure some or at least one of the criminals arrested there would give up the name of the people that had arranged that ill-fated meeting. Perplexed he read on and was dismayed to find his own name in the report:

**'Two masked vigilantes were said to have been on the scene by several witnesses. Their purpose and/or intent has not as of yet been ascertained. One male: Identity unknown; A.K.A. Night-wing. One female: Identity unknown; no known aliases. Both wanted for questioning concerning the illegal use of an explosive substance, reckless endangerment and illegal discharge of a firearm.'**

Irritated, Dick thought, _sure, give me up but protect the guys who actually set those charges and poisoned you all. _His frustration must have shown because Alfred turned to him, "Is there a problem young Sir?"

"Not at all Alfred," he said, his words dripping sarcasm, "unless you consider me wanted for questioning by the NYPD a _problem_."

Alfred halted his own work and stepped over to Dick's station for a look and tried to allay Dick's exasperation, "Do not fret Master Richard, every vigilante worth his salt is wanted by at least one law enforcement agency."

"Probably Alfred but I have to go back there, I have job to do! And this will make it that much harder if I have to dodge the police while trying to do it." As Dick spoke Alfred's face took on an expression of pity that Dick didn't like and fired his suspicion, "What is it Alfred? What's wrong?"

With some trepidation Alfred replied, "I am sorry Master Richard, but as long as you are infected with this mysterious enzyme, I am afraid you are quarantined here on the premises. Those were Master Wayne's orders and I must admit I do concur; we cannot risk your wellbeing until we know more about your infection."

Upon hearing of his forced confinement Dick was flustered and more than a little irritated, "You mean you're going to keep me here? I messed up and now I'm under house arrest!?"

"Sir, it is not at all like that."

"Then how is it like Alfred?!"

Alfred's voice became stern, it was a tone Dick rarely heard from him. "Master Richard, you have become infected with an unknown agent that could have serious effects on your physical and mental condition. This is not only about you, dozens, perhaps hundreds of people by now have become infected with this enzyme, they are all at risk and they do not even know of their danger." He paused and his voice softened, but only slightly, "I know it is difficult but in order to monitor the progress of this infection and find a way to reverse it we need to study your condition, we need you here."

Admonished, Dick looked away, "I'm sorry Alfred, but… if it were Bruce would he quarantine himself here?"

Alfred rested a hand on the young man's shoulder and his tone lost it's austerity, "Probably not, at least at the outset. But you have also been shot, twice, you need to heal before you can even think about going out in pursuit of that illicit organization again in any case. Besides, we may have the answers we are looking for by then."

Mollified somewhat, Dick nodded his acquiescent to his situation and returned to his work and Alfred resumed his, but something Alfred said bothered him. "Alfred what did you mean by 'serious effects' on my mental condition?"

Inwardly Alfred sighed, he was perturbed at himself for letting that slip but he would not lie to the young man. Still he tried very hard to keep his concern from his voice, "Because this enzyme adheres to the DNA in your blood, Master Richard, it is entirely possible it could pass through the blood-brain barrier and become embedded within the cells there."

Now Dick was concerned, "So you're saying you're worried this catalyst could cause brain damage?"

"Unfortunately Sir, I cannot rule that possibility out but there are a multitude of other effects it could have."

"Such as?…"

Alfred sighed again, he really didn't want to discuss this so soon into his analysis. "Sir, until we know more it really is unwise to speculate…"

The young man turned to face the older one, "Alfred please, tell me the truth."

Alfred halted the data stream again and turned to meet the young man's earnest gaze, "Very well, but this is still only supposition at this point."

"Understood."

"Brain damage is not the most specific term to imply what could happen. Most likely the catalyst could cause a disruption in brain chemistry that could have a host of different effects both physical and psychological." Alfred paused a moment to gage the young man's reaction before he continued. So far he remained composed but the worst was yet to come, "Or… it could cause mutation. Because the enzyme attaches itself to DNA the catalyst in turn would adhere to the enzyme and through it would create, change or disrupt whatever it was programmed to do to the DNA of each cell infected. So you see, until we find out the nature of this catalyst we have no hope of telling what will happen or if what happens is permanent. The best we can do is try to find a way to dislodge the enzymes themselves from the cells they have infected before they come into contact with the catalyst." The young man was strangely silent and Alfred was a little worried because that was out of character for Richard Grayson.

Expressionless, Dick was mulling over the information, "So, other than getting our hands on this catalyst the best way to find out what it does is to look at the people infected and who is infecting them."

Alfred could not hide his smile of approval at his words, it was so very much like the young man's mentor would have responded. "Indeed Sir." Dick turned back to the computer with renewed enthusiasm and so did Alfred. If he could help it, he would not let anything untoward happen to this young man.

Dick's first course of action was to compile a list of all the known felons that were at the warehouse because they were all targeted for infection. Later his list would expand to include various addicts and users that bought and used the infected drugs.

After Bruce first found the enzyme in that shipment of LSD he had contacted Dr. Leslie Thompkins and had her report any cases she found of the enzyme in her patients at her free-clinic. Within the first few days she found eleven, since then she'd found twenty-three more and those were only the people she could take a blood sample from legally. This infection was turning into an epidemic as those discovered at the clinic would indicate only a small number of people that were potentially infected throughout Gotham not to mention all the other cities Niveus Noctis operated in. Dr. Thompkins had alerted the medical authorities in the city and they said were looking into it but according to Alfred who kept in contact with her, she was not optimistic. At the moment it was an inert substance and Leslie Thompkins didn't believe they were taking her seriously. The good doctor was becoming alarmed especially after she discovered the enzyme would probably go unnoticed under the standard blood screening of every blood bank in the city, perhaps the country.

Dick studied the list of names Dr. Thompkins provided and added the list to his own from the police file. At the end of the long arrest report in the file Dick found an attachment; composite sketches by a police artist of himself, masked as Nightwing and the mysterious woman he met there, the woman who shot him, twice. Drawn from the memories of the criminals in the warehouse and considering the chaos and the dim lighting he had to admit the likenesses weren't bad.

As he studied the artist's rendition of her face, still obscured by the camouflage, he wondered what her connection was to all this. She knew of Niveus Noctis but Dick had doubts that she worked with them or for them, it was nothing really substantial, just a gut feeling. Was she investigating them too? Does she know what this new criminal organization that has infiltrated the underworld of every major city on the east coast is up to? Does she know she is infected? All Dick knew at that moment was that he had to find her again, but in his present state he could barely walk across a room let alone get back to New York. Then of course, there was his confinement. Dick resigned himself to the fact that he would have to locate her digitally. Fortunately he had something to go on, two somethings actually; the blood sample he collected after she was shot and now, a picture. As he gazed at her face his brow furrowed in determination, _I__'__m going to find you and when I do we__'__re going to have a nice long chat._

* * *

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

_Goddess_

_Volume 1: Descention_

_Book 4: Fever _

_Part 5: Watchers_

* * *

**Neutral Tones**

_Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)_

_**Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove**_

_**Over tedious riddles of years ago;**_

_**And some words played between us to and fro**_

_**On which lost the more by our love.**_

_**The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing**_

_**Alive enough to have strength to die;**_

_**And a grin of bitterness swept thereby**_

_**Like an ominous bird a-wing**__**…**__**.**_

* * *

_New York City_

Nick sat at Shay's bedside and watched her sleep, he'd been there for hours. The bandage on her upper chest was dotted with red again, it would need to be changed soon. She had an IV in her wrist, just above the long diagonal scar… Nick had seen that scar before and the matching one on her other wrist. As long as Nick had known her Shay never mentioned those particular scars. The one time that Nick did had been the last because the change that came over her was… scary. She got angry, said it didn't concern him and told him never to ask again and he didn't but he often wondered what was so terrible or hopeless that she could do that to herself.

Shay had many secrets but the one Nick wasn't going to let her keep was where she'd been for two years. When she woke up Nick would make her tell him, she owed him that much, but she gave no indication that she was going to wake up anytime soon.

After her fever finally broke she slipped into unconsciousness. Jeannie said she would be fine. It was a healing sleep but she was dehydrated, that was what the IV was for.

What really concerned his sister was the gunshot wound. It was close to Shay's lung. Jeannie had said something about a pulmonary contusion; she explained that was a bruising of the lung. The bullet didn't penetrate the organ but it was close. She would have to be monitored closely for the next few days to make sure complications like pneumonia didn't develop.

Jeannie had always had been cautious and thorough, even now that she was retired. She said Shay would need lots of rest to recover fully and she had to stay in one place; no traipsing around the city. If there was anyone else in the world Shay trusted with anything medical Nick didn't know about them. Shay would listen to Jeannie, he hoped. Nick also hoped Shay was back for good.

As Nick watched her he wondered what she had been doing for two years and why she didn't call. She could have at least let him know she was alive. He was relieved that she was but the not knowing for two long years was a terrible thing to put a friend through. In spite of his deep concern, Nick was still angry.

He rose and walked to the window. It was a bright and beautiful summer day and he could see children playing in the small park across the street, little Lily among them, his niece. She was nine, almost ten and much too curious about her grandmother's new house guest so they sent her off to play with her friends. The little girl barely remembered Shay from before and it was probably better that way.

Nick's mind drifted back to the events just before Shay had disappeared. She hadn't been living in the trailer at Nick's place for months but she still went there to work on their _projects_. Shay was living with Stef in a small apartment here in Midtown. They could have lived here with Jeannie and her partner Mar and the ladies had offered but the two of them wanted a place of their own, Nick couldn't blame them and in light of what happened it was probably better that they had not lived here.

Nick couldn't remember a time when Shay had been happier than she was with Stef. Stefan Jossi was an artist, a talented one that Mar couldn't stop talking about. Mar, Margaritte La Salle, was an artist herself and was well respected in the art-world. She had sold quite a bit of work over her long career. Enough to buy this building here in Midtown where she and Jeannie planned to spend their retirement years together. But Mar said she could never stop 'creating' just because she got old, so she opened a small gallery on the building's lower floors.

Stef caught Mar's eye at an amateur art show in Central Park and she invited him to show a few of his pieces in her gallery. Stef jumped at the chance. He had just moved to New York from New Orleans, he was young, ambitious and full of life. He was of Jamaican descent and his heritage showed in his work. Mar said he would go far here in New York, that he was a unique and interesting new talent. When Mar learned he was living in a motel she had him move in here, in this very room. Nick could see she still had some of his paintings, covered in sheets and the place still smelled of oil paint.

One night Shay got a stab wound, it was deep and Nick didn't want to just stitch it up without his sister taking a look so he convinced Shay to see Jeannie. That was when Stef met Shay for the first time and his curiosity about her grew until it bordered on obsession. Shay tried her best to avoid him but when he showed up at her trailer one day… Well, that was the beginning of the end for Shay. Even Nick could see the chemistry between the two of them but Shay tried to keep Stef at arm's length and continued to rebuff him because she never let anyone too close. Even Nick himself, probably the closest person to her, didn't know much about Shay's past but he knew she was afraid of something or someone. She kept people away to keep them safe but Stefan Jossi would have none of that.

It was an odd courtship. The harder Shay tried to avoid him the more relentless he became in his pursuit. She tried everything, she got angry, even mean and once she left town for awhile but nothing would deter him and as soon as she returned he was hanging around again. Eventually, somehow, Stef broke her down and Nick still couldn't figure out how he did it but he was happy he did, they all were, even Mar though she would never admit it. Shay needed someone, she had always kept everyone at bay, but she wasn't living her life, she was just existing in it. The young artist breathed new life into Shay, he made her smile and laugh, he made her live again. Stefan Jossi was exactly what she needed.

Then it happened. Nick still didn't know all the details and he wasn't sure if Shay would ever tell him the whole story. All he did know was that Stef had disappeared one night but somehow Shay knew where he was. Nick had never seen her so afraid. She had come by the trailer to get some equipment and then she tore off on her motorcycle, that was two years ago and Nick didn't see her again until the other night. Stef had turned up dead in Central Park from a stab wound the next day though. The police said it was a mugging gone bad but Nick doubted that. He didn't know what really happened but he was sure that Shay did and it had kept her away for two years.

Nick had expected to see Shay at Stef's funeral at least but if she was there he didn't see her. It was a sad time for them, especially Mar. Though she loved Jeannie's grandchildren, she never had a child of her own and Nick suspected that was how she felt about Stef. His death hit her hard and she never forgave Shay for putting him in danger. She certainly wasn't overjoyed when Nick brought her there wounded and delirious especially now that the girls were living with them.

As if on cue, Felicia, Jeannie's granddaughter walked into the room carrying a tray with a steaming cup, some food and a newspaper. "Hey Uncle Nick, Grandma J thought you might want something to eat." Felicia and her sister Lily had moved in with Jeannie and Mar after their mother passed away last year in Gotham, Jeannie's only child. They said it was health complications brought on by a lifetime of drug abuse. Their father had disappeared years before.

"Thanks Fel, I'm not really hungry but I could use the coffee."

Felicia glanced at Shay, "How's she doing?"

Nick picked up the cup, "No change. Your Grandma would be the better one to ask."

"She went to get some rest and told me to send you to my room for the same, I can watch her Uncle, go get some sleep."

"Maybe a little later." Her concern warmed his heart, She was a good kid, smart, beautiful but she had to grow up much too soon. Due to her mothers addictions and poor health she was rarely home; in and out of rehab and hospitals. Felicia was left to take care of her younger sister, Lily. Felicia was more mother to that little girl than her real mother ever was. They lived in a tough part of Gotham too.

She was wearing a Gotham University sweatshirt and Nick knew she would be going back there when the summer was over. Jeannie had been trying to convince her to transfer to NYU but Fel insisted she had to go back to Gotham. In spite of it's problems, it was her home she'd said. She was a tough kid, a Gothamite through and through.

But even Felicia had to admit the crime there was intense, even scary and she had seen it firsthand. A couple of years ago on one of her summer visits Fel told them about the time she actually saw the Batman, she loved to tell that story.

She was still in high school and she had been doing homework one night when she heard shouting and gunshots in her building. She went out into the hall when she heard frightened talking and crying. Suddenly people began rushing down the hall toward her and away from some sort of commotion behind them but they had nowhere to go so she ushered them all inside her apartment. She didn't know what was happening but the racket got louder and someone was shooting a gun outside her door. Everyone was terrified and Fel knew that whatever was happening was deadly serious and she had a room full of scared people including her little sister so she had them all leave through the fire escape and down to the ground where several police cars had gathered.

She was the last one to leave and as she descended the metal ladder she glanced up and saw _him, _the Batman. He leapt from the building across the alley to the fire-escape above her. He briefly looked down at her then he disappeared into the window of her apartment, _her apartment_. She positively glowed when she got to that part of her story.

She found out later that a group of maniacs were being chased by police and they ran to Fel's building because they had a hide-out on the floor above her own and with the police outside, they had nowhere to go; they were looking for hostages. The police said that if those people had stayed in the hallway… well it was just lucky that they didn't.

Nick was so proud of her but Jeannie was mortified. Nick remembered with a smile when Felicia said that _she_ was mortified because the Batman went into her apartment and she hadn't done the dinner dishes yet.

A few months later Felicia graduated high school and to everyone's surprise, including her own, she received a full scholarship to Gotham University from some obscure inner-city charity foundation. Fel said she hadn't applied for any scholarships yet, she was going to take a year off and work full-time but the funding included living expenses that was enough for herself and her sister so she took it and now was a psych student majoring in forensic and criminal psychology. Jeannie still wanted her to transfer to New York but Felicia resisted, Gotham City was the best place in the country for the path she'd chosen.

Felicia set the tray down on a table near the chair Nick had just occupied and sat, watching Shay. "Did she say anything yet about where she's been?"

Nick took a drink of his coffee and shook his head, "No, and I think if she hadn't gotten hurt we wouldn't have seen her at all."

"So no idea how she got shot?"

"No, but I hope she'll tell us when she wakes up."

Fel rose and took the paper from the tray and opened it, "You said you found her near a golf course?"

"Ya, why?"

"Well there's a thing in the paper about a dead woman found at the Dyker Beach Golf Course…"

Nick walked quickly over, "Let me see that." Fel handed him the paper and he read the page-three story. There wasn't a lot information, the police weren't saying much. All it did say was that there was an unidentified female victim in a wooded area near the course and that the whole area was cordoned off and they had shut down of the northern part of the golf course. Nick remembered finding Shay returning from a wooded area near the crash site. He looked down at the woman's still form and wondered… _What the hell happened Shay?_

Fel followed her uncle's gaze, "You don't think she had anything to do with that do you Uncle?"

"No, of course not, Shay would never murder anyone." But she had been gone for two years and she was insistent that she and Nick didn't leave any traces of them being there. At the time he thought it was just typical Shay-paranoia but now… _No. _Nick banished those thoughts. _She wouldn__'__t kill anyone; Shay was a lot of things but she wasn__'__t a murderer._

"Well then, let's not tell Grandma Mar about this then, she doesn't want Shay here as it is."

It was no secret that Mar never liked Shay and her shadowy lifestyle and she had always openly blamed Shay for Stef's death.

"Probably a good idea. Besides, I'm sure she has an explanation."

"Go get some sleep Uncle, I'll sit with her."

Nick looked down at Shay again, that seed of doubt still lingered but even if she woke up what could she do? She was really banged up this time and he could use a couple hours sleep. "Okay, but come get me if she wakes up."

Felicia settled down in the chair again to read the rest of the paper, "You got it Uncle Nick."

* * *

_New York City_

_Midtown Manhattan _

The car was old and it made a disturbing clunking noise. The fourteen year old sedan still ran at least; it's former owner knew something of cars, judging from the mechanic's tools he found in the trunk but apparently not enough to fix that distracting noise. The interior of the vehicle was filled with clutter; old clothes, garbage, and mementos of the man who had lived in it for years. Pictures of people, letters, bits of hair in an envelope that grew from the head of someone named Jeremy when he was two; none of which held any interest to the car's new owner. They were pieces of a life that now were stuffed in black garbage bags in the trunk, destined for a landfill. The car's previous owner had no need for them anymore, he had an unfortunate accident: In a drunken stupor he fell off the dock near where his car was parked and drowned in the river. He did feel the need for his tools apparently, his heavy coat's pockets were filled with them which would have made it difficult to swim if he were conscious enough to do so, which he wasn't. It was no real tragedy however, he was dead already, like everyone else.

Victor Zsasz drove through the streets of New York confident that the homeless man that had lived in this car would not be found for sometime. It was difficult though. Changing his routine wasn't as easy as he would have thought. It was all he could do not to stab the man in that special place that would incapacitate him but would let him live long enough for Victor to watch the life fade from his eyes. It was difficult smothering the old man into unconsciousness and dumping him in the river in a heavy weighted-down coat and to not pose the body in some fashion. It was harder still not to make the cut in his own flesh. He wasn't going to, it felt wrong. Victor didn't feel any radiance from it, no ecstasy, it was just a little light that went out. It was a murder of necessity; Victor just really needed a car. It was a life however and finally Victor cut the mark into his own flesh to count it amongst all the others.

New York City was a big place and unlike Gotham City, Victor was less than familiar with it's streets and neighborhoods. He had been to New York in his youth many times but that was years ago. He still had family here, perhaps not officially. He had been disowned after his second incarceration. After the third time he was caught and returned to Arkham the damage he had done to the Zsasz family name was irreparable and to save their reputation, his estranged relatives had changed it: They were all Zance's now. Victor had to smile, the former Zsasz family's holdings were substantial, the name change must have cost a fortune.

The Zsasz/Zance family had always called New York home, Victor's father had moved to Gotham to oversee the family's extensive holdings there but they would often return during holidays and other occasions. Not that it mattered to a young Victor Zsasz. They were his father's family and none of them interested Victor. Like his mother's side of the family, Gotham City was Victor's home. Although scandalous to the haughty and proud Zsasz family, the native Gothamite part of Victor's lineage was much more interesting.

His father's arrogant relatives had never understood why he married a low-born woman with such a dubious and somewhat forbidding family history. His mother's sadistic stepfather terrorized his wife, Victor's grandmother, for years and when she became too ill to be of any more sport he turned his attention to their son Luther to the cruel man's eventual regret. Luther, he would come to learn, was not a boy to be victimized for long. He turned on his father and took half his hand with a butcher's knife before the police finally hauled the old man away for good. When Luther's mother recovered she divorced her brutal and incarcerated husband and remarried and thus Victor's mother was born.

Victor's mother was not without her own issues however. She had a tendency to fly into rages and although they were infrequent, to Victor's father's credit he was strong enough to stand against her, mostly. But her brother, Victor's Uncle Luther, was a force to be reckoned with. Victor remembered the fights his parents had over Luther. Victor's father hated him but it was more than that, Victor believed his father feared him and he was right to. Luther was a predator, like Victor himself. They saw the world and everyone in it the same way; imperfect creatures that were filled with their own self-importance and would never fathom how insignificant their lives really were. Victor and his uncle were kindred spirits.

Victor had a soft spot in his dark heart for his mother as well. He had actually grieved a little when she died. His father died with her when their boat exploded in the Gotham Bay but he felt nothing for him. Victor's mother was different though; she was special, she shined in her own way, she wasn't dead like everyone else, well not until she stepped onto the boat that day. She and Luther were the only people in the world Victor had ever felt any sentiment for but they were both long gone now. She to a tragic boating incident and Luther… While it is true his body died in Arkham years ago Luther had truly died long before when a little girl ravaged his mind and he became the pathetic waste Victor himself dispatched in the asylum. Victor had resolved to make his way in the world without his uncle's guidance and had long before given up on finding the girl until he met her again…

He wanted to believe Fate had brought her to him. He was following his true path again and Fate was rewarding him. He had wondered if perhaps he should have taken her when he found her blinded, bleeding and broken in that ravine near the sight of his last offering but now he believed it was good that he didn't. If she was who he thought she was then he had to wonder, what she was capable of, even injured and weakened? After all, if she was indeed the same person that brought his uncle low all those years before and she was only a child then, what could she do now and how did she do it? How did she break his uncle's mind? Victor would have to be cautious with this one, he would need to learn more about her and find her weakness. She would be a worthy adversary, a suitable test of his resolve and his faith in his destiny.

Victor drove through Midtown Manhattan again. He had followed the truck that picked her up that night and when he found it parked on the street there was no sign of anyone. It was parked near a small art gallery and a few retail shops many of which had apartments above them. That meant she was there, on that street, somewhere. He parked his own newly acquired vehicle a block away from the truck he spotted. She was here somewhere but he was patient, he would wait and watch. He had some time before the next ritual and his offering was already caged in darkness… waiting for it's time to shine.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

_Goddess_

_Volume 1: Descention_

_Book 4: Fever_

_Part 6: Old Friends _

* * *

**Mutability**

_**William Wordsworth**_

_(1770-1850)_

_From low to high doth dissolution climb,_

_And sink from high to low, along a scale_

_Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;_

_A musical but melancholy chime,_

_Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,_

_Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care._

_Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear_

_The longest date do melt like frosty rime,_

* * *

_**Old Friends**_

_New York City_

Detective Michael Sully sat at his desk and read the ME report on the woman in the woods. They had found an ID; she was Susan Hartford, a forty-year old real-estate agent. Her younger sister had filed a missing persons report a few days before Susan's body was found. Being new to homicide Michael Sully was unfamiliar with informing people of the grim news of a loved one's death and he concluded that it was the toughest part of the job. The sister, Denise, took it well enough until it came time to view the body, then she broke down. Seeing someone you care about dead is a terrible thing but the state Susan Hartford was found in, that was a nightmare come true. Even cleaned up the damage done to the poor woman was more than evident. The symbols carved into the woman's… Susan's flesh were intricate and complex; it would have taken time and according to the ME report she was alive when he did it.

What made the situation worse was the reporter that had snuck into the morgue and managed to take a picture of the grieving sister and the body. It was all Sully could do not to break the bastard's arm as he wrestled him out of the room and into the hands of a couple uniforms who escorted him off the premises. But the damage was done, by the evening edition the press was calling the killer 'The Carver'.

Sully had searched two years worth of homicide investigations all over North America looking for similar cases and had little luck. Most of the more brutal cases were closed; the killer being either found or dead. The few open cases Sully found didn't match the level of depravity or the violence done to Susan Hartford. Also the few murderers that Sully found to be known but still at large just didn't fit the MO: Among many others there was Rodeiro 'The Hunter' Rodriguez out in L.A. who favored chopping off limbs with a machete; intricate symbols just wasn't his style. Up in Detroit there was Gerrard Doyle who drew stick people on his victims before he asphyxiated them and according to his profile he can't stand the sight of blood. Then there was Victor Zsasz in Gotham City, only a stone's throw away but again carving symbols into his victims wasn't what he did, he liked to carve them into his own flesh and they were simplistic hatch marks, one for each of his victims. Sully had never seen Zsasz but he'd heard his body was covered with scars from those marks, and that they numbered in the hundreds. If there was truly one for each victim that would make Victor Zsasz one of the most prolific serial killers of all time. He was loose too but according to his profile he was territorial; he had never killed anyone outside Gotham City as far as anyone knew and the news and the police reports out of Gotham claimed he was there terrorizing their city. _Better them than us, _Sully thought with a shudder, they had enough trouble with 'The Carver'.

Sully looked up to see his partner Theo Ranoli walk toward him, a disgusted look on his grizzled face. "You find anything yet Shamrock?"

During the first week of their partnership Sully learned to ignore Ranoli's blatant racial slurs to his Irish heritage. "No nothing substantial, Victor Zsasz is loose but he seems to be wreaking havoc in Gotham. You find anything?"

"Nothing at the vic's apartment, no sign of forced entry though the lock could have been picked. No prints other than her own and friends and family that have been accounted for and the boyfriend has a solid alibi."

Sully could tell his partner was getting frustrated. He had a high closure rate but a brutal case like this with little to no leads, it was maddening. "What about the symbols?"

"I'm on my way to that symbologist again, hopefully he skipped lunch today."

Inwardly Sully had to smile, the last time Ranoli consulted with the symbologist the detective brought pictures of Susan Hartford's symbol engraved body for the expert to decipher, he took one look then threw up all over Ranoli's shoes. "Hope you brought a spare pair this time."

Ranoli looked even more disgusted, if that was possible. "They're in my car. I'm bringing him drawing of the symbols this time, these shoes cost me sixty bucks and I ain't risking them!" Theo grabbed a file from his side of the desk and looked down at the array of files on Sully's side. "How far back did you go with your research?"

"Two years, like you said and found nothing that matches this MO exactly. I did find a few similar cases but the suspects were either killed or apprehended."

"Go back further, five years, ten, maybe this guy was in prison, maybe he was in a coma. He's killed before and you're going to find his previous victims." Ranoli turned to leave and over his shoulder he said, "Do your magic leprechaun, find me a pot of gold."

Sully silently sighed as he watched his partner walk away then he spied another familiar face. It was Matthew Wrinn, his old partner from vice and smiling Sully rose to greet him. "Matt! What are you doing here?"

Grinning Matt Wrinn approached, he was taller than Sully but not by much. He had that bad-boy look that was more than a little popular with the ladies; sandy brown hair, dark blue eyes and just unshaven enough to look rugged rather than scruffy. As Matt drew closer he extended his hand, "Just slumming it here on the Island, thought you might have missed me."

Sully took his hand and shook it affably, "With every shot but my aim is getting better."

"Man, that's getting old, you need some new material. Aren't they teaching you anything up here in homicide?"

Sully gestured at the files piled on his desk, "Oh yeah, I'm learning all kinds of things, how to treat paper cuts and red eye from staring at the computer all day."

"Heard you're on the 'Carver' case. From what I heard it sounded pretty gruesome."

"Don't get me started."

Wrinn glanced at the multitude of files on Sully's desk, "You're new partner got you chained to the desk eh?"

"Yeah well, somebody's got to do it. Tell me, how's things in Marsh-land?"

"Not much has changed, same shit…

Smiling Sully nodded, "…different day. What pulled you out of your hole in Brooklyn?"

Wrinn looked around cautiously, gestured Sully to sit and pulled Ranoli's vacant chair over then sat next to his former partner. His voice, while not whispering, became hushed, "Actually I came here with some news that I thought you might be interested in." Wrinn pulled out an evidence bag from his jacket's inside pocket and Sully recognized what it contained immediately.

He took the bag from Wrinn, "Where did you find this?" It was a small triangular throwing star, a shuriken and Sully had seen it's like before, many times.

"That was one of several we found at the scene of a warehouse raid in Brooklyn a couple of days ago. That particular one was pulled from the hand of Tommy Fervani."

Sully looked up at his former partner, "_The_ Tommy Fervani? Grandson of Guido Fervani who pretty much owns Brooklyn's racketeering and drug trade?" Wrinn just nodded as sully continued "I heard something about that raid, there were people from several organizations there, but no drugs were seized."

"No, it was some sort of meeting and all we got were parole violations, weapons charges and misdemeanors. They weren't saying what the meet was about but they were all eager to give us info concerning the masks that were there, you're former girlfriend included."

Sully's mind was racing and the 'girlfriend' remark barely registered but something else Wrinn said did, "Masks? More than one?"

"Yeah, it seems your old partner has found someone else to fumble around in the dark with."

Sully waved the comment off, "Come on Matt, it was never like that."

Wrinn grinned again, "Not for lack of trying." then he pulled some papers from another pocket and unfolded one. "I'm sure you recognize her." Sully looked at the paper, it was a police artist's sketch and he did indeed recognize the face. Without a doubt, it was Shay, she was back and in spite of himself his stomach rolled and his heart quickened and he hoped to God his face hadn't reddened. Wrinn's grin widened but mercifully he didn't say anything, he just unfolded the other paper and gave that to Sully as well. "You know more about the world of masked vigilantes…"

"No I don't Matt, I don't think she ever worked with any other masks."

"She didn't say anything during those long midnight talks?"

"They were never long and they were always business."

"Sure buddy. Just take a look. Do you know anything about him?"

Sully studied the sketch. The mask looked to be in his twenties, clean shaven, no distinguishing marks, dark hair and a domino mask covered his eyes. Sully shook his head, "I've never seen him before, got any leads on him or why they were at that warehouse?"

"We've identified him as a vigilante known as Night-wing but he's out of his home territory. He's been known to work in Bludhaven and in Gotham with that Batman character." Wrinn gestured at Shay's picture, "She ever mention them?"

"Not that I can remember, she really wasn't part of that crowd, I got the impression she was a loner."

"But she worked with you."

"It was never a close working relationship, you know that. She'd find the slimebags and call us in…"

"No, she called _you_ in, she never liked dealing with me. I don't know why, I'm much better looking."

Sully's eyes sought the picture of Shay again and his mind began working things out, but his thoughts were interrupted by his former partner.

"I really opened up a can of worms didn't I?"

Sully looked up, "No Matt, I just… I'm in homicide now. If she's back, well you know what she did for us…"

Matt sat back in Ranoli's chair, "And for herself…"

"Exactly, I wouldn't be able to help her any more, she might contact you."

Wrinn didn't look convinced, "Maybe, but I doubt it, so does the Captain."

"You mean _your_ Captain."

"Marsh is still your superior Mike, and he thinks she'll reach out to you."

"Why?"

"For one thing she's back and you my friend, were the only person in the department she ever talked to."

"That was two years ago Matt…"

Wrinn interrupted, "There was something else, we found a burner phone at the site. The last number it called was 911. I doubt the drug pushers and racketeers called the police, that leaves the masks."

"See? That just proves my point, she didn't call me…"

"Not from that phone no."

Sully finally caught where this friendly interrogation was going, "You think I'm lying to you?!"

Wrinn looked around, making sure no one was nearby to hear Sully's hushed outburst. "Calm down Mike." Then he leaned in and spoke quietly, "Look, I was your partner for three years, you were working with her months before you stared working with me and I know how you felt about her. You'd try to protect her."

"Protect her? From what? She never needed my protection."

Wrinn studied his friend's face looking for anything that might indicate deception. "Reports at the warehouse scene state she was shot."

"What?" Sully made to rise from his chair but Wrinn pushed him back down.

"Just listen, we checked hospitals and clinics across the city and found no one matching her description admitted with a gunshot wound. Witnesses state they didn't shoot at the vigilantes, but that doesn't jive with the evidence. But they all concur that they heard two shots fired inside the warehouse after both masks disappeared."

"You think they turned on each other?"

Wrinn looked frustrated, "I don't know what to think. The whole situation is a mess, I mean look who we got for witnesses, Tommy Fervani and others like him and worse. All we do have is her weapons pulled out of the hands and wrists of several felons, the phone and an empty gun that was found far from the witnesses location, traces of blood and two blood trails; one leading out a back emergency door and out into undeveloped land nearby, and the other led to the roof where the uniforms on the scene report to have heard the sound of a helicopter fly over the area. If they were working together why wouldn't they leave together? Then there was the bombs."

"Bombs?!" This was beginning to sound like a television show. "What bombs?"

"There were a dozen devices planted all over the warehouse, the witnesses think it was the masks that planted them but it could have been rivals, there were a few gangs and organizations missing from the guest list. One or both of the masks could have been hired to rid someone of a rival. Do you remember her ever using explosives?"

Sully didn't want to admit the truth, "Yes, but there were never so extravagant, she used small charges, once she was trapped in a freezer compartment and she blew off the locking mechanism of the door to escape. Small stuff like that. She never used anything powerful enough to blow a whole building."

"The mechanisms were faulty, there wasn't enough explosives in them to do any real damage. Maybe it was some sort of scare tactic. Maybe she's taking the war on drugs and organized crime personally."

Sully had always felt she took everything personally. "Look I know you think she contacted me Matt, but honestly, she didn't. If she was shot…" _She could be dead__…_

"Okay Mike, I just wanted to give you the heads up. Unlike myself, the - _my_ captain, wants her and that other mask off the streets."

"He sent you here didn't he? Captain Marsh."

"Yes, he was going to haul you in to his office but I got him to send me instead. I told him you might be more inclined to talk to a friendly face. But listen Mike, if he finds anything linking you to her recently, well like I said I just wanted to warn you."

"And that's all you wanted?"

"All I really want are some answers. I want to know what happened at that warehouse, if there's something major going down we need to know about it. Some sort of gang war about to erupt…"

Sully nodded, Matt Wrinn was a good cop and he had almost as many run-ins with Marsh in Marsh-land, his former precinct, as Sully did, and the only reason Michael Sully stood lower in the Captain Marsh's regard was Shay.

Sully looked his former partner pointedly in the face, "I'm not saying she has contacted me or that she will, but if she does I'll find out what she knows about that warehouse meet and I'll tell you."

Wrinn grinned again, "Well that wouldn't satisfy Marsh but it's good enough for me."

"So what are you going to tell him, _your_ captain?"

Wrinn's smile remained on his face but it faded from his eyes, "Just what you told me bud, the truth; that her being back in town was news to you and that I'm inclined to believe it." Than he rose from Ranoli's chair, "You look like you're buried in work here and I'm sorry to drop a bomb on you and leave but I've got to get back to Brooklyn."

Sully waved off the apology, "No, I'm glad you came and told me, looks like you still got my back Matt, and I appreciate it."

"Hey, you'd do the same for me."

They shook hands again and Wrinn turned away with a wave but Sully took a step after him, "Hey, Matt, lets go for a beer sometime soon, and lets not just say we will and never do it, okay?"

Wrinn turned again smiling, "Hey, I'm free tomorrow night."

Sully smiled too, "Alright, tomorrow it is. It was good to see you Matt."

With another departing wave Matt Wrinn turned and walked to the elevators, and the smile was still on his face.

Sully sat at his desk again and contemplated his old partner. He had to admit, if only to himself that he missed vice, he missed a partner he could talk to, trust, have a beer with after work. Sully looked down at the picture of Shay and he admitted, again only to himself that he missed her too. But it wasn't just her, it was the thrill, the arrests and the few times he saw her work.

He remembered being cornered in the backroom of a meth-lab, the fumes were tearing his eyes, making him nauseous. There were three pushers all with automatic weapons and he couldn't get a shot at any of them and Wrinn and his back-up were ten minutes away. Then she was there. She dropped on them from the ceiling and they didn't know what hit them. She was a blur of motion, and she took them down in seconds. She probably saved his life that day. Now she was back and if it was for good… He wondered if he should go back to vice, after this case was closed of course.

Then he thought about the case and Susan Hartford dead and mutilated in the woods. He thought about the crime-scene that day and the evidence they collected and something clicked in his mind… Sully jumped up and went to Ranoli's desk and searched the files there until he found the report he was looking for.

It was the analysis of the paint chips found on a guard rail at the scene. It wasn't simply paint, it was a matte-black automotive under-body sealant. Sully remembered Shay driving off many times on a matte black motorcycle. It had been concluded that the vehicle that hit the guard-rail near the scene of Susan Hartford's murder was a motorcycle. He then returned to his own desk and computer and looked up Matt's report on the warehouse crime scene, specifically the address and found it wasn't all that far from the golf course where Susan Hartford was found. Sully recalled the ravine and that they had found a multitude of foot prints but what was more interesting was the indentation on the ground where motorcycle had landed, and it was just a few yards away from the indentation where Sully found the small pool of blood. They had put in for a DNA test on it but it wasn't a high priority at the moment, the results could take another week to come in. He looked at Shay's picture again and wondered, _was she there at his crime-scene? Did she see the body? Did she see the killer?_ Then a terrible thought rose in his mind and his brow furrowed in concern, _Shay__…__ don__'__t be this bastard__'__s next victim. _

* * *

_To be continued..._


End file.
